Structural behavior of non-symmetrical steel cable-stayed bridges

Despite of the growing number of built examples, the analysis of non-symmetrical cable-stayed bridges has not received considerable attention from the researchers. In fact, the effects of the main design parameters in the structural behavior of these bridges are not addressed in detail in the literature. To fill this gap, this paper studies the structural response of a number of non-symmetrical cable-stayed bridges. With this aim, a parametric analysis is performed to evaluate the effect of each of the main design parameters (the ratio between the main and the back span length, the pylon, the deck and backstay stiffnesses, the pylon inclination, and the stay configuration) of this kind of bridges. Furthermore, the role of the geometrical nonlinearity and the steel consumption in stays are evaluated.