Determination of structural behavior of Bosporus suspension bridge considering construction stages and different soil conditions

In this paper, it is aimed to determine the structural behavior of suspension bridges considering construction stages and different soil conditions. Bosporus Suspension Bridge connecting the Europe and Asia in Istanbul is selected as an example. Finite element model of the bridge is constituted using SAP2000 program considering existing drawings. Geometric nonlinearities are taken into consideration in the analysis using P-Delta large displacement criterion. The time dependent material strength of steel and concrete and geometric variations is included in the analysis. Time dependent material properties are considered as compressive strength, aging, shrinkage and creep for concrete, and relaxation for steel. To emphases the soil condition effect on the structural behavior of suspension bridges, each of hard, medium and soft soils are considered in the analysis. The structural behavior of the bridge at different construction stages and different soil conditions has been examined. Two different finite element analyses with and without construction stages are carried out and results are compared with each other. At the end of the analyses, variation of the displacement and internal forces such as bending moment, axial forces and shear forces for bridge deck and towers are given in detail. Also, displacement and stresses for bridge foundation are given with detail. It can be seen from the analyses that there are some differences between both analyses (with and without construction stages) and the results obtained from the construction stages are bigger. It can be stated that the analysis without construction stages cannot give the reliable solutions. In addition, soil condition have effect on the structural behavior of the bridge. So, it is thought that construction stage analysis using time dependent material properties, geometric nonlinearity and soil conditions effects should be considered in order to obtain more realistic structural behavior of suspension bridges.