Beam Spacing, The Stiffness Of The Impact Of Long-span Composite Beam Cable-stayed Bridge Carrying Capacity

Transverse beams have been considered as subordinate structure for cable-stayed bridge, but in real design they can't be neglected. The correct analysis, computation, and the use of material in transverse beams have been an important part in the entire design.The analytical example is Min-River Cable-Stayed Bridge, which is the third longest cable-stayed bridge and the longest composite beam cable-stayed bridge in the world, with main span 605m. The paper set up a 3D model of the bridge with ANSYS finite element program, considering the geometrical and material non-linearity. After evaluation and comparison of the different space and rigidity, some conclusions have been got:1. Cable-stayed bridge will be destroyed for strength, lost of stability, or for both. The change of space or rigidity of transverse beams will alternate the failure reason.2. Transverse beams will to some degree affect the ultimate capacity of cable-stayed bridge, the less space or the more rigidity, the more capacity. However, there is a limitation to improve capacity by the way. When exceeding the limitation, the capacity will be otherwise cut down.3. The space and rigidity have great influence on the behavior of transverse beams.4. The space and rigidity have little influence on the behavior of behavior of girders, tower and cables.