Safety Evaluation of Stay Cables of Cable-Stayed and Extradosed Bridges via Deterministic and Non-deterministic Methods

Abstract

Cable-stayed and extradosed bridges are thought to be identical structures because both bridges use stay cables for reinforcement. However, the safety factors of their stay cables are stipulated differently in many international standards, i.e., Japanese specifications suggest the safety factors of 2.5 and 1.67 for the design of cable-stayed and extradosed bridges, respectively. In this chapter, a parametric study is carried out for the evaluation of safety factors of stay cables by employing the deterministic and nondeterministic methods at limit states. As a result, it is found that the safety factors in the range of 2.3–2.5 and 1.67 are indispensable for the safe design of cable-stayed and extradosed bridges, respectively, to satisfy the conditions of limit states and target reliability index.