DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF STRESS RIBBON BRIDGES

Siddhartha Ray, D. M. Joshi, Rahul Chandrashekar

Abstract: A stressed ribbon bridge (also known as stress-ribbon bridge or catenary bridge) is primarily a structure under tension. The tension cables form the part of the deck which follows an inverted catenary between supports. The ribbon is stressed such that it is in compression, thereby increasing the rigidity of the structure where as a suspension spans tend to sway and bounce. Such bridges are typically made RCC structures with tension cables to support them. Such bridges are generally not designed for vehicular traffic but where it is essential, additional rigidity is essential to avoid the failure of the structure in bending. A stress ribbon bridge of 45 meter span is modelled and analyzed using ANSYS version 12. For simplicity in importing civil materials and civil cross sections, CivilFEM version 12 add-on of ANSYS was used. A 3D model of the whole structure was developed and analyzed and according to the analysis results, the design was performed manually.

Keywords: Stress Ribbon, Precast Segments, Prestressing, Dynamic Analysis, Pedestrian Excitation.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2016.0508018