An energy balance method for seismic analysis of cable-stayed bridges

Abstract

In this paper, a seismic evaluation procedure based on an energy balance concept is presented for the cable-stayed bridge. In this method, the capacity curve obtained from the modal pushover analysis of the cable-stayed bridge is converted to modal energy capacity diagram. Then, by intersecting this diagram and the energy demand diagram for a selected ground motion, the dynamic target point is obtained. This method is employed on the cable-stayed bridge under Imperial Valley earthquakes with different peak ground motion, and the seismic demands are compared with the results from modal pushover and nonlinear response history analyses. It is observed that this energy balance method can estimate the seismic responses under the selected ground motions with proper accuracy. It should be noted, the OpenSees software is employed for modeling and analyzing of the cable-stayed bridge.