Abstract
In various industrial plants such as thermal power plants, nuclear power plants or chemical plants, many cable trays are generally used for supporting cables by which control signals will be transmitted. Cable trays are generally made by thin steel plates both sides of which are folded in the vertical direction, while cables are simply placed on the tray. Thus, cables begin to slide when the response acceleration of trays exceeds some amount of value. Consequently, seismic responses of cable tray will also depend on the occurrence of sliding motion of cables. And cable trays reveal torsion bending because sides of them are folded in the vertical direction and thus the shear center differs from the mass center. Therefore, cable trays are seen as highly nonlinear structural systems. In this study, seismic responses of the cable tray are investigated analytically considering the cable sliding motions. A cable tray is modeled by a two-degree-of-freedom system. Response acceleration and displacement of the tray and the cable are evaluated for seismic inputs. It is confirmed that the sliding motion of the cable has very large influences on the seismic responses of the cable tray.
