RELIABILITY ANALYSIS FOR STIFFENING GIRDER DEFLECTION OF A SELF-ANCHORED SUSPENSION BRIDGE

Wanxin Bridge, a self-anchored suspension bridge with main span of 160m, is the longest one among the concrete self-anchored suspension bridges in the world. The cables were made of a continuous galvanized steel rope passing over all saddles, and the two main cables form a closed loop. It was the first practice of looped main cable in China. The elastic modulus of steel rope is lower than that of the parallel wire used in common cases, which leads the stiffening girder deflection to be larger under vehicle load. So, rigidity control is an important issue in the design of the bridge. Thus, the reliability analysis for stiffening girder deflection of the bridge is carried out in this paper. In finite element (FE) model nonlinear behaviors of the structure are considered including main cable's geometric nonlinearity and P-Delta effect of the tower and the stiffening girder. The results show that the reliability of stiffening girder's deflection meets the requirement of object reliability index and the bridge is rigid enough to resist the vehicle load.