Niechanisms and evaluation of cable corrosion in long-span bridges

In view of the fact that cables for suspension and cable-stayed bridges are susceptible to corrosion and tend to become stress relaxation after long-term service, it is essential to take those damage effects into consideration in structural analysis to ensure the safety of the existing bridges. By introducing Lemaitre's equivalent-strain principle and geometrical damage theory, the corrosion mechanisms of cable are described. A cable-damage model for safety assessment in long-span cable-supported bridges is presented. With the approach, cable corrosion as well as stress relaxation effects has been taken into account in the structural analysis. The results lead to good precision and validate a new approach to assess the safety of cables in existing long-span cable-stayed bridges, and it also could be applied in structural health monitoring of cable-supported bridges.