Dynamic Bending Stresses near the Ends of Parallel-Bundle Stay Cables

Dynamic bending stresses in stay cables may have a significant influence on their fatigue life, especially when they are not provided with sufficiently stiff lateral supports at a certain distance from the sockets. This work is concerned with the analysis of dynamic bending stresses near the ends of parallel wire cables of the following characteristics: a) Poly Ethylene (PE) sheath pipe grouted with cement mortar along the cable length except for short segments at the ends where the grout material is a bituminous epoxy, and b) the cables do not have guides or lateral supports near the sockets. It is shown that the maximum dynamic stresses due to global and local bending of the wires are always higher than what it would be if there were no discontinuities of the mortar cement grout at the cable ends. It is shown that the increase of bending stresses is caused by localised deformations that take place at the free length of the cable near the sockets.