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A 'cable-stayed bridge' is a bridge that consists of one or more columns (normally referred to as 'towers' or 'pylons'), with cables supporting the bridge deck. There are two major classes of cable-stayed bridges, differentiated by how the cables are connected to the tower(s). In a 'harp' design, the cables are made nearly parallel by attaching cables to various points on the tower so that the height of attachment of each on the tower is similar to the distance from the tower along the roadway to its lower attachment. In a 'fan' design, the cables all connect to or pass over the top of the tower.
The cable-stay design is the optimum bridge for a span length between that of cantilever bridges and suspension bridges. Within this range of span lengths a suspension bridge would require a great deal more cable, while a full cantilever bridge would require considerably more material and be substantially heavier.

Contents

History of development

Comparison with suspension bridge

Variations

Side-spar cable-stayed bridge

Multiple span cable-stayed bridge

Related bridge types

Self anchored suspension bridge

Extradosed bridge

Notable cable-stayed bridges

External links

See Also

Bibliography

References

History of development

Cable-stayed bridges can be dated back to the 1784 design of a timber bridge by German carpenter C.T. Loescher. Many early suspension bridges were of hybrid suspension and cable-stayed construction, including the 1817 footbridge at Dryburgh Abbey, and the later Albert Bridge (1872) and Brooklyn Bridge (1883). Their designers found that the combination of technologies created a stiffer bridge, and John A. Roebling took particular advantage of this to limit deformations due to railway loads in the Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge.

The earliest known example of a true cable-stayed bridge in the United States is E.E. Runyon's extant steel (or perhaps iron) bridge with wooden stringers and decking in Bluff Dale, Texas (1890).^[1] In the twentieth century, early examples of cable-stayed bridges included A. Gisclard's unusual Cassagnes bridge (1899), where the horizontal part of the cable forces is balanced by a separate horizontal tie cable, preventing significant compression in the deck, and G. Leinekugel le Coq's bridge at Lezardrieux in Brittany (1924). Eduardo Torroja designed a cable-stayed aqueduct at Tempul in 1926.^[2] Albert Caquot's 1952 concrete-decked cable-stayed bridge over the Donzére-Mondragon canal at Pierrelatte is one of the first of the modern type, but had little influence on later development.^[3] The steel-decked bridge designed at Strömsund by Franz Dischinger (1955) is therefore more often cited as the first modern cable-stayed bridge.
Other key pioneers included Riccardo Morandi and Fritz Leonhardt. Early bridges from this period used very few stay cables, as in the Theodor Heuss Bridge (1958). However, this involves substantial erection costs, and more modern structures tend to use many more cables to ensure greater economy.

Comparison with suspension bridge

A multiple-tower cable-stayed bridge may appear similar to a suspension bridge, but in fact is very different in principle and in the method of construction. In the suspension bridge, a large cable is made up by "spinning" small diameter wires between two towers, and at each end to anchorages into the ground or to a massive structure. These cables form the primary load-bearing structure for the bridge deck. Before the deck is installed, the cables are under tension from only their own weight. Smaller cables or rods are then suspended from the main cable, and used to support the load of the bridge deck, which is lifted in sections and attached to the suspender cables. As this is done the tension in the cables increases, as it does with the live load of vehicles or persons crossing the bridge. The tension on the cables must be transferred to the earth by the anchorages, which are sometimes difficult to construct due to poor soil conditions.

Suspension bridge

Cable-stayed bridge, fan design

Cable-stayed bridge, harp design

In the cable-stayed bridge, the towers form the primary load-bearing structure. A cantilever approach is often used for support of the bridge deck near the towers, but areas further from them are supported by cables running directly to the towers. This has the disadvantage, compared to the suspension bridge, that the cables pull to the sides as opposed to directly up, requiring the bridge deck to be stronger to resist the resulting horizontal compression loads; but has the advantage of not requiring firm anchorages to resist a horizontal pull as in the suspension bridge. All static horizontal forces are balanced so that the supporting tower does not tend to tilt or slide, needing only to resist such forces from the live loads.
Key advantages of the cable-stayed form are as follows:

★ much greater stiffness than the suspension bridge, so that deformations of the deck under live loads are reduced

★ can be constructed by cantilevering out from the tower - the cables act both as temporary and permanent supports to the bridge deck

★ for a symmetrical bridge (i.e. spans on either side of the tower are the same), the horizontal forces balance and large ground anchorages are not required
A further advantage of the cable-stayed bridge is that any number of towers may be used. This bridge form can be as easily built with a single tower, as with a pair of towers. However, a suspension bridge is usually built only with a pair of towers.

Variations

Side-spar cable-stayed bridge

A side-spar cable-stayed bridge uses a central tower supported on only one side. The example shown in that article is not significantly different in structure from a conventional cable-stayed bridge, although this concept could allow the construction of a curved bridge. Far more radical in its structure, the Redding, California Sundial Bridge is a pedestrian bridge that uses a single cantilever spar on one side of the span, with cables on one side only to support the bridge deck. Unlike the other cable stayed types shown this bridge exerts considerable overturning force upon its foundation and the spar must resist the bending caused by the cables, as the cable forces are not balanced by opposing cables. The spar of this particular bridge forms the gnomon of a large garden sundial. Related bridges by the archictect Santiago Calatrava include the Puente del Alamillo and Puente de la Mujer

Multiple span cable-stayed bridge

Cable-stayed bridges with more than three spans involve significantly more challenging design than do 2-span or 3-span structures.
In a 2-span or 3-span cable-stay bridge, the loads from the main spans are normally anchored back to near the end abutments by stays in the end spans. For more spans, this isn't the case, and the bridge structure is less stiff overall. This can create difficulties both in the design of the deck and the pylons.
Examples of multiple span structures where this is the case include Ting Kau Bridge, where additional 'cross-bracing' stays are used to stabilise the pylons; Millau Viaduct and Mezcala Bridge, where twin-legged towers are used; and General Rafael Urdaneta Bridge, where very stiff multi-legged frame towers were adopted. A similar situation with a suspension bridge is found at both the Great Seto Bridge and San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge where additional anchorage piers are required after every set of three suspension spans - this solution can also be adopted for cable-stayed bridges.^[4]

Related bridge types

Self anchored suspension bridge

A 'self-anchored suspension bridge' has some similarity in principle to the cable stayed type in that tension forces that prevent the deck from dropping are converted into compression forces vertically in the tower and horizontally along the deck structure. It is also related to the suspension bridge in having arcuate main cables with suspender cables, although the self-anchored type lacks the heavy cable anchorages of the ordinary suspension bridge. Unlike either a cable stayed bridge or a suspension bridge, the self-anchored suspension bridge must be supported by falsework during construction and so it is more expensive to construct.

Extradosed bridge

The extradosed bridge is a cable-stayed bridge but with a more substantial bridge deck that being stiffer and stronger allows the cables to be omitted close to the tower and for the towers to be lower in proportion to the span.

Notable cable-stayed bridges

''See also: List of largest cable-stayed bridges and ''

★ Vidyasagar Setu (2nd Hooghly Bridge) in Kolkata, West Bengal, India is the longest cable-stayed bridge in the Indian subcontinent, with the main span measuring 457.2 m (1,500 feet) and total length being 823 m (2,700 feet).

★ Penang Bridge in Malaysia is the longest bridge in South East Asia, with its longest span measuring 225m. Currently being upgraded.

★ Vasco da Gama Bridge in Lisbon, Portugal is the longest bridge in Europe, with a total length of 17.2 km (10.7 mi), including 0.829 km (0.5 mi) for the main bridge, 11.5 km (7.1 mi) in viaducts, and 4.8 km (3.0 mi) in extension roads.

★ Rio-Antirio bridge: with a total length of 2880 m and four towers, this is the bridge with the second longest cable-stayed suspended deck (2258 m long) in the world, spanning the Gulf of Corinth near Patra, Greece.

★ Tatara Bridge: has the largest span of any cable-stayed bridge at 890 metres (2,920 ft), part of a series of bridges connecting Honshū and Shikoku in Japan.

★ Millau Viaduct is the bridge with the tallest piers in the world: 341 metres tall (1,118 ft) and roadway 270 metres high (886 ft), spanning the Tarn River in France. With a total length of 2460 m and seven towers, it also has the longest cable-stayed suspended deck in the world.

★ Kap Shui Mun Bridge: it carries both road and railway traffic, with a main span of 430 metres and an overall length of 1323 metres, connecting Ma Wan and Lantau Island in Hong Kong as part of the Lantau Link serving Hong Kong International Airport.

★ Skybridge: the world's longest transit-only bridge, spanning the Fraser River between New Westminster and Surrey, BC, Canada.

★ Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge: the world's widest cable-stayed bridge; carries 10 lanes of Interstate 93 over the Charles River in Boston, Massachusetts.

★ Surgut Bridge: the longest one-tower cable-stayed bridge in the world, crossing the Ob River in Siberia.

★ Arthur Ravenel, Jr. Bridge: the longest cable-stayed bridge in the Western Hemisphere, spanning the Cooper River in Charleston, South Carolina.

★ Sundial Bridge: an award-winning single spar pedestrian bridge spanning the Sacramento River in Redding, California.

★ Ting Kau Bridge: the world's first major four-span (three towers) cable-stayed bridge, forming part of the road network connecting Hong Kong International Airport to other parts of Hong Kong, China.

★ Oresund bridge, a combined two-track rail and four-lane road bridge with a main span of 490 metres and a total length of 7.85 km, crossing the Oresund strait between Malmö, Sweden and the Danish Capital Region.

★ Centennial Bridge: a six-lane vehicular bridge that crosses the Panama Canal with a total length of 1.05 km (3,451 ft).

★ Sunshine Skyway Bridge: The world's longest bridge with a cable-stayed main span. The very similar looking Oresund bridge is slightly shorter but has a longer main span.

★ Nový Most: The world's longest cable-stayed bridge in category with one pylon and with one cable-stayed plane, spanning Danube river in Bratislava, Slovakia. The main span is 303 metres, total length 430.8 metres. The only member of World Federation of Great Towers that is primarily used as a bridge. It houses a flying-saucer restaurant at the top of pylon 85 metres high.

★ New Railroad Bridge: the first bridge to use cable-stayed girder system in the railroad industry, connects two banks of Sava river in Belgrade.

★ Bandra Worli Sea-Link: The new 8-lane twin carriageway cable-stayed bridge of the sea-link project and the West Island Freeway system, under construction, connects Greater Mumbai, India to the western suburbs.

External links

★ North American Cable Stayed Bridge Registry

★ Structurae: Cable-stayed Bridges

★ Cable-Stayed Bridge

★ Cable-stayed bridges on Brantacan

★ Bridgemeister: Cable-stayed Bridges

★ Cable-Stayed Bridge Basics

See Also

Bibliography

# "Cable Stayed Bridges", Rene Walther et al., Thomas Telford Publishing, 1999 (2nd edition)

References

1. HABS/HAER, United States Library of Congress, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.tx0762.
2. Troyano, Leonardo, '"Bridge Engineering: A Global Perspective"', Thomas Telford Publishing, 2003, p.650
3. Troyano, Leonardo, '"Bridge Engineering: A Global Perspective"', Thomas Telford Publishing, 2003, p.652
4. Virlogeux, Michel, ''"Bridges with multiple cable-stayed spans"'', Structural Engineering International, 1/2001