Elastic-Plastic Analysis of Suspension Bridge Towers Subjected to Earthquake Ground Motions

Abstract

This paper deals theoretically with the elastic-plastic analysis of suspension bridge towers subjected to ground motions. In a previous theoretical study it was concluded that the response of the towers of a long span suspension bridge was more significant than that of suspended structures. For convenience of analysis a simplified structural system for a suspension bridge tower with finite degrees of freedom of motion was adopted, and ground disturbances of a simple shape and of an actual earthquake were used. The numerical computation were done on the Kyoto University High Speed Digital Computer, KDC-I. In this investigation some remarkable conclusions on the elastic-plastic response of the system were obtained.