Concept and Preliminary Analysis of Novel Movable Structural System for Cable-Stayed Footbridge

Abstract

Movable bridges are interesting and feasible solutions at the crossover point of transportations, providing fascinating landscapes and significant engineering challenges. This paper presents a new structural system applied to a movable cable-stayed footbridge. It is an S-shaped curved bridge suspended by cables, and can be opened with a moving mechanism coupled with the torsional deformation. In this paper, we clarify the mechanical behavior of the structural system through a preliminary analysis. We propose novel concepts of the twistable deck, aiming to improve the dynamic performance of the structural system. We trace the moving process of the structure by decoupling the elastic deformation and the rigid displacement. We confirm the validity and versatility of the proposed structural system through the optimal shapes for the footbridges in different cases with respect to the symmetricity and serviceability. The concept of the movable structural system proposed herein is believed to be feasible for application to the design of movable footbridges based on the preliminary analysis.