DEVELOPMENT LENGTH FOR SINGLE WIRE IN SUSPENSION BRIDGE CABLE

If a wire within a suspension bridge cable should break, it is of interest to know over what length from the break the wire will carry its full share of the cable force. This length is called the development length. It is shown theoretically that this length depends on the tightness of the cable wrapping or clamping bands, but that this dependence is not very strong. As long as there is some tightness in the cable the development length is quite small. Very high contact stresses will develop between the broken wire and its neighbors due to Poisson's ratio. Whether the high contact stresses affect the strength of these wires is not investigated.