Characteristics of hanger for a long span suspension bridge

Abstract

For a suspension bridge, the balance of design, fabrication, and erection of the hangers presents a major concern. The hangers play an important role for the bridge geometry and are very sensitive to length error. This paper focuses on the characteristics of suspension bridge hangers through a study of numerical analyses. Difference between bridges with one hanger rope at a hanger location per each cable plane and with two or more hanger ropes in the longitudinal direction are studied in detail. Erroneous fabrication of angers may cause undesirable results for a real bridge because two or more hangers in the longitudinal direction at one hanger location are occasionally modeled as one hanger element in the design. This simplification may not represent the actual behavior of hangers on suspension bridges. The findings of this study provide important clues to the fabrication requirements of hangers for suspension bridges.