Global buckling design method for long-span cable-stayed bridge using elastoplastic finite displacement analysis

Abstract

For cable-stayed bridges, which are made up of steel girders and towers, it is important to design them safely against buckling and to understand their ultimate state. Generally, safety against global buckling is ensured by verification using the effective buckling length. However, it is difficult to accurately evaluate the effective buckling length of a complex structure such as a cable-stayed bridge. Therefore, this paper proposes a method to directly verify safety against global buckling using an elastoplastic finite displacement analysis of the entire bridge system, taking into account both geometric nonlinearity and material nonlinearity.