FAILURE ANALYSIS OF THE HANGER CLAMPS OF THE KUTAI-KARTANEGARA BRIDGE FROM THE FRACTURE MECHANICS VIEWPOINT

Abstract

On November 26, 2011,the Kutai-Kartanegara Suspension Bridge in Indonesia collapsed. The collapse was triggered by failure of the clamp of cable band that connects the hanger with the main cable in the middle of the centerspan. The national investigation team report cited the failure as a result of stress accumulation on the clamps that have been weakened by fatigue, initial fracture and corrosion. In this paper, we investigated in more detail the possibility of shear brittle fracture of the clamp's pin from the viewpoint of linear fracture mechanics by utilizing the measured Charpy absorbed energy. Several possible scenarios of defect sizes and combined stress conditions were assumed. The analysis shows that the shear brittle fracture could occur even under low shear stress level when several unfavorable conditions occur simultaneously .