Engineering Structures 40 (2012) 95106

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Engineering Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/engstruct

Analysis of the construction process of cable-stayed bridges built

on temporary supports
J.A. Lozano-Galant a,, I. Pay-Zaforteza b,1, D. Xu c, J. Turmo d
a

Department of Civil Engineering, Castilla-La Mancha University, Avda. Camilo Jos Cela s/n, 13071 Ciudad Real, Spain
Instituto de Ciencia y Tecnologa del Hormign (ICITECH), Departamento de Ingeniera de la Construccin y Proyectos de Ingeniera Civil, Universidad Politcnica de Valencia, Camino
de Vera s/n, 46023 Valencia, Spain
c
Department of Bridge Engineering, Tongji University, 1239, Siping Road, 200092 Shanghai, China
d
Department of Construction Engineering, Universitat Politcnica de Catalunya, BarcelonaTech, c/Jordi Girona 1-3, C1, 08034 Barcelona, Spain
b

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 26 April 2011
Revised 2 December 2011
Accepted 5 February 2012
Available online 28 March 2012
Keywords:
Cable-stayed bridges
Construction process
Temporary supports erection method
Backward modeling

a b s t r a c t
The temporary supports erection method is a fast and economical way of building cable-stayed bridges.
In this method the bridge deck is rst erected on a set of temporary and permanent supports and then,
the stays are successively placed and tensioned according to a predened tensioning sequence. A proper
denition and analysis of this sequence is very complex as the structure is highly statically indeterminate, exhibits a non linear behavior and has a changing static scheme.
Despite its importance, no specic research referring to the modeling of the temporary support erection method has been found as most of the modeling procedures are proposed for the alternative erection
technique, the cantilever erection method. The modeling carried out by most of these methods is based
on the opposite construction sequence followed on site, this is to say, the structure is disassembled from
the desired nal stage (Objective Completion Stage, OCS).
A procedure, the Backward Algorithm (BA), is formally presented in this paper for calculation of the
erection of cable-stayed bridges built on temporary supports. Because of its simplicity the BA can be
reproduced by any structural code that enables the modeling of the prestresses of the stays by means
of imposed strains or imposed temperature increments. Another advantage is that no separate models
are needed to calculate the evolution of stresses in the strands when the strand by strand tensioning
technique is used. Furthermore, the stay elongations when prestressed can be easily obtained when
the stays are prestressed in a single operation or strand by strand. This information is important to control the correct and safe prestressing of the stay on site. In addition, it also help the designer to control if
the anchor wedge bites the strand in the same position several times during the prestressing process.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
One of the most important causes of the rapid progress of
cable-stayed bridges in recent decades is the development of the
construction techniques that made its erection possible [15].
Wherever it is possible, the temporary support method is the fastest way of building cable-stayed bridges because conventional
construction techniques may be used. This fact simplies the erection task and leads to lower costs [6]. This technique has been
employed in many cable-stayed bridges such as the Val-Benoit
Bridge [7] or the Sanhao Bridge [8]. When environmental factors
or the requirements of the foundations prevent the placement of

Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 902 204 100x3277.

E-mail addresses: joseantonio.lozano@uclm.es (J.A. Lozano-Galant), igpaza@
upvnet.upv.es (I. Pay-Zaforteza), xu_dong@tongji.edu.cn (D. Xu), Jose.turmo@
uclm.edu (J. Turmo).
1
Tel.: +34 963 877 000x75623.
0141-0296/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2012.02.005

the temporary supports during construction, the cantilever erection method [9] is used. This technique has been employed in
the construction of the longest cable-stayed bridges such as Sutong
Bridge [10] with a main span of 1088 m. The cantilever erection
method consists on the placement of deck segments in cantilever
either in both sides of the pylon or in one side only and balanced
by backstays located on the opposite side of the deck.
The structural behavior of these structures has been studied by
many authors [1116]. Nevertheless, the erection procedures of
the cable-stayed bridges are not so studied. Many works [1724],
have been presented in order to either optimize or simulate the
construction process of cable-stayed bridges using the cantilever
method. Nevertheless, no specic works based on the temporary
supports erection method have been found. This paper aims to ll
this gap by providing a new procedure that models the construction process of cable-stayed bridges built on temporary supports.
Fig. 1 presents the temporary support erection method for an
N = 6 six stay cable-stayed bridge built on K construction stages.

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J.A. Lozano-Galant et al. / Engineering Structures 40 (2012) 95106

Nomenclature
BA
Auxiliary
Cn
Cn,1
Cn,2
CPm
FEM
[FM]
[IM]
K
L
N
k
NBA
Cn
Softwarek

NCn

NOCS
Cn
Nk;i
Cn
NkTM
eU

NCCnm
{NTL}
{NOCS}
OCS
OSS
P
RTL
Tt
RTL
C n;2

Backward Algorithm
Modelk,i ith local iteration of the kth auxiliary model
nth stay
Connection between the pylon and the nth stay
Connection between the deck and the nth stay
mth Comparison Parameter
Finite Element Method
Force Matrix
Inuence Matrix
number of construction stages
length of the stay
number of stays
axial force in the nth stay in the kth construction stage
obtained by the BA
axial force in the nth stay in the kth construction stage
obtained by the commercial software
axial force in the nth stay in the OCS
axial force in the nth stay in the kth construction stage
in the ith local iteration
axial force dened for the kth row of the [TM]
axial force in the nth stay produced by an imposed unitary strain in the mth stay
vector of axial forces in the stays produced by the TL
vector of axial forces in the stays in the OCS
Objective Completion Stage
Objective Service Stage
number of permanent supports
vertical reaction in the tth temporary support when TL
is applied
vertical reaction in a ctitious temporary support located at the connection between the nth stay and the
bridge girder when TL is applied

In the initial stage (Stage k = 0), the self weight of the structure, g1,
is counterbalanced by a set of T = 2 temporary supports and P = 3
permanent supports (Fig. 1a). This way, vertical reactions in both
the temporary supports, R0T t , and in the permanent supports, R0Pp ,
are found. Then, during the tensioning process, the stays are successively placed and tensioned by the jacks and the deck is raised
from the temporary supports (Fig. 1b). In these stages, the load g1 is
counterbalanced by the non-raised supports, RkT t , and by the tensile
forces introduced into the placed stays, N kC n . When the tensioning
process is completed after K tensioning stages (Fig. 1c), the nal
desired stage, known as the Objective Completion Stage (OCS), is
achieved. This stage can be easily calculated from the Objective
Service Stage (OSS), which satises the stress distribution pursued
by the designer in such a way that under a certain load hypothesis,
target load, TL, the stays present a given vector of forces {NOSS}
(Fig. 1d). This stage will only be achieved when TL is applied into
the structure.
Calculation of the construction process of cable-stayed bridges,
this is to say, the tensioning process that has to be followed during
construction, is very complicated as the structure is statically
highly redundant, non linear and is continuously changing its static
scheme during its construction. The forward simulation of the actual construction sequence on site is associated with a number of
computational difculties. For example, each time that any stay
is being prestressed the axial forces of the rest of stays are changed
(see Fig. 8 in Section 5.2). Because of these difculties the backward simulation is commonly used, as it is much simpler. In fact,
this technique has been employed by many authors for the

Rk;i
Tt
RkPp
Stagek
Stagek1
T
TL
[TM]
i
k
p
t
uTL
C n;1
wk;i
Tt

acn

DNk;i
Cn
DL
DW k;i
Tt

eUCm

{eCP}

ek;i
CP

vertical reaction in the tth temporary support in the kth

construction stage and ith local iteration
vertical reaction in the pth permanent support in the
kth construction stage
kth construction stage
k  1th construction stage
number of temporary supports
Target Load
Tensioning Matrix
indicator of the local iterative process
indicator of the construction stage
indicator of the permanent support
indicator of the temporary support
horizontal deection at the connection between the nth
stay and the pylon when TL is applied
vertical deection at the tth temporary support produced in the kth construction stage in the ith local iteration
inclination of the nth stay
increment of axial force at the nth stay produced in the
ith local iteration of the kth auxiliary model
elongation of the stay
increment of vertical deection at the tth temporary
produced in the ith local iteration of the kth auxiliary
model
imposed unitary strain in the mth stay
vector of imposed strains in the stays during construction process
imposed strain in the kth construction stage of the construction process and ith iteration of the local iterative
process

cantilever method: Behin in [17,18] proposed a substructure-frontal technique that started the calculation in the reference conguration of the completed bridge. In this technique, nonlinearities for
P-Delta effects were included by a continuous updating of the geometric conguration and nonlinearities from cables were included
by using catenary equations. Fan et al. in [25] proposed a method
to dene the optimum stay forces from a backward analysis that
included the creep effect. Mao et al. in [26] proposed a backward-analysis based on the creep aging theory for erection of concrete cable-stayed bridges. Reddy et al. in [20] proposed a
nonlinear nite-element methodology for the stage by stage construction. The results of this method were compared with eld
measurements of a long-span cable-stayed bridge. Wang et al. in
[23] proposed a method for nding the initial shape of bridge
structures during the cantilever erection procedure. In the backward approach the structure is disassembled from the OCS. The sequence of events in the disassembly analysis is the opposite of that
which occurs during erection. The tensioning process that has to be
followed during construction can be dened by a Tensioning Matrix [TM], like the one shown in Fig. 2. As the backward approach
is used, this matrix is calculated from the bottom up. Nevertheless,
the erection direction is the opposite. With K being the number of
construction stages and N the number of stays, this matrix is
formed of K rows and two columns; the rst column describes
the stay that is prestressed at each stage and the second describes
the axial force to be introduced by the jack. Usually each stay is
tensioned several times through the tensioning process. For a K
stage construction process, the last K  N + 1 axial forces of [TM]

J.A. Lozano-Galant et al. / Engineering Structures 40 (2012) 95106

Fig. 1. Temporary supports erection method: (a) Stagek=0, (b) Stagek=k, (c) Stagek=K or
Objective Completion Stage (OCS), (d) Objective Service Stage (OSS).

can be directly dened by the designer. Nevertheless, the remaining N  1 axial forces, highlighted in bold in Fig. 2, are unknown
due to innate evolutionary nature of the construction process of
the cable-stayed bridges. For this reason, it can be said that the
[TM] is incomplete or not fully known. The calculation of these unknown forces is indirect and must take into account all the preceding and subsequent tensioning operations. In fact, the axial force
that has to be introduced into each stay when placed must be calculated in such a way that the achievement of the OCS is assured
after completion. [TM] can be enlarged into the Force Matrix,
[FM], which describes the axial forces of all placed stays

97

throughout the construction process. This matrix, K  N size, can

be dened from the [TM] as presented in Fig. 2. In [FM] the tensile
forces introduced by the jack in each stage, this is to say, the values
of the [TM], are framed. The last row of the [FM] is known and represents the tensile forces in the stays at the OCS. Nevertheless, unknown values appear in the rest of stages. In fact, in addition to the
initial unknown forces dened in [TM], the evolution of axial forces
in placed stays, highlighted in bold in Fig. 2, is also unknown and
must be calculated throughout the analysis of the construction
process.
During the initial N stages of the construction process on site,
the structural schemes change since new members (stays) are
added to the structure. Also, the load-carrying system is usually
changed from the temporary supports to the stays [27]. This way,
the temporary supports are successively raised. Once any temporary support has been raised, according to our direct interviews
with different contractors and designers, two different tendencies
are observed: some usually keep it on site in order to control the
deections in the following construction stages. On the other hand,
other designers prefer to remove it, to better control the stiffness of
the bridge. In this paper, the former approach has been followed.
Despite the fact that the OCS can be modeled easily with any
structural program, the modeling of the sequence of events that
has to be followed on site in order to assure its achievement is
quite complicated as the structure is highly evolutionary and statically redundant. The modeling of the construction process carried
out by the commercial programs consists of applying the superposition of stages in reverse. Some advanced commercial programs
e.g. Midas or Wiseplus [28], include special features such as the
nonlinear analysis for the raising of the supports, or the fact that
the prestresses of the stays are introduced as imposed forces. This
last characteristic has two disadvantages. First of all, separate models are needed to calculate the stresses in the rst placed strand
when the strand by strand tensioning technique is used. Secondly,
the stay elongations when these elements are prestressed in a single operation or strand by strand cannot be easily calculated. Furthermore, most of the ordinary structural programs do not include
such rened features and, therefore, the analysis of the construction process is even more complex.
In this paper, an algorithm based on the backward approach for
studying the construction of cable-stayed bridges built on temporary supports, the Backward Algorithm, (BA), is formally presented.
The three objectives of the algorithm are: (1) To introduce a procedure for designing the construction of cable-stayed bridges built on
temporary supports that can be applied using any structural software, (2) To dene a method to calculate the prestressing stress
that is to be applied to the rst strand when using a strand by
strand tensioning technique, (3) To dene a procedure to calculate
the stay elongations when these elements are prestressed.
This paper starts with the analysis of the modeling of the OSS by
imposed strains according to the Rigidly Continuous Beam Criterion [29,30]. After that, the main hypotheses of the modeling of
the construction process of cable-stayed bridges carried out by
two commercial software and the BA are described. Next, the results of a simplied cable-stayed bridge obtained by the analysis
carried out by commercial programs are compared with those obtained by the BA. It is to point out that the study presented here
consists of an initial analysis that can be used for designing the
construction process of cable-stayed bridges built on temporary
supports and for this reason the effects of time-dependent phenomena, such as creep, shrinkage or stay relaxation, or geometrical
nonlinearities, such as beam-column effect or large displacements
are not taken into account. Due to the limited lengths of the stays
in the bridges built on temporary supports, usually cable sag is not
an issue that needs to be modeled. Only when very low stresses are
used to prestress the cables in the initial stages, Ernst Modulus can

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J.A. Lozano-Galant et al. / Engineering Structures 40 (2012) 95106

Fig. 2. Example of Tensioning Matrix, [TM], and Force Matrix, [FM], for a N = 6 stay bridge with K = 12 tensioning stages modeled backwards. The unknown forces are bold
and the prestressed stays in each stage are framed. The modeling direction is showed by the continuous arrow and the erection direction by the dotted one.

be taken into account. If this is the case, a proposed approximation

that will keep the presented algorithm still valid is to modify the
Ernst Modulus in a stay only when it is prestressed. This will be
an acceptable approximation providing that the prestress of a given stays does not signicantly affect the stresses of the others.
If it is not the case, an iterative process will be needed and the algorithm should be modied. Only the changes of static scheme and
the raising of the temporary supports nonlinearities have been
modeled. Finally, the main conclusions of the work are drawn.
2. Modeling of the OSS using strains
The Objective Service Stage (OSS) is a target scheme of forces
and/or deections dened according to the designer criterion,
which has to be achieved when a given load hypothesis, the target
load, TL, is applied in the completed structure without any temporary support. Given the TL, this stage can be dened by a vector of
axial forces in the stays, {NOSS}. Once the OSS has been dened, the
last construction stage that counterbalances the self weight, g1, can
be easily obtained. This stage is known as the Objective Completion Stage (OCS). The tensioning strategy that is described into
the Tensioning Matrix, [TM], should assure the achievement of
the OCS at the end of the construction process.
In the literature there are ve main structural criteria to dene
the OSS of cable-stayed bridges: (1) Rigidly Continuous Beam
[29,30], (2) Zero Displacement Criterion [29,31], (3) Minimal Bending Energy Criterion [32], and also some (4) Optimization Criterion
[19,21]. This last criterion includes some restriction to achieve
practical feasible solutions. Another innovative criterion was proposed by Janjic et al. in [22] who developed a method to take into
account the construction process and the effect of the time-dependent phenomena into the denition of the OSS. In this paper the
Rigidly Continuous Supported Beam criterion has been used.

Nevertheless, without any lack of generality any of the other described criteria could have been used. The Rigidly Continuous Supported Beam criterion is based on the assumption that the cablestayed bridge deck behaves, in a long-term, like a rigidly continuous beam borne on ctitious rigid supports at cable anchor points.
In order to dene the axial forces in the stays in the OSS, N OSS
C n , the
following procedure is followed: rst of all, the vertical reaction,
RTL
C n;2 , obtained in the equivalent beam model in each temporary
support, Cn,2, under the TL is obtained, as presented in Fig. 3a. Then,
as is shown in Fig. 3b, the axial forces of the stays, N OSS
C n , are obtained considering that RTL
C n;2 is its vertical projection. Mathematically, the value of N OSS
can be deduced from Eq. (1), where
Cn
tensile forces and upward reactions are considered positive.

NOSS
Cn

RTL
C n;2
SinaC n

The axial force in the backstays is calculated in order to avoid

the horizontal deections of the top of the pylon, uOSS
C 1;1 0 or to
minimize shear or bending moment at the base of the pylon. Positive horizontal (u) and vertical (w) deections followed the positive direction of axes X and Z, as presented in Fig. 3a.
Once the N OSS
C n have been obtained, modeling the OSS in some advanced commercial programs, e.g. Midas or Wiseplus, is direct because advanced features that allow the modeling of the tensile
forces in the stays by means of imposed forces are available. Nevertheless, in not so rened programs or in the algorithm that has
been developed in this paper, modeling of the OSS should be done
through imposed strains in the cables (or temperature decrements). The imposed strains, eC m , which have to be introduced into
each stay to achieve the OSS are unknown. To dene these parameters the effect of the TL on the stays must be separated from the
prestress introduced by the jack. Therefore, the target axial force
for the nth stay, N OSS
C n , can be calculated from the axial force in

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J.A. Lozano-Galant et al. / Engineering Structures 40 (2012) 95106

3. Commercial software

Fig. 3. Rigidly continuous beam criterion: (a) Continuous beam reactions. (b)
Projection of the reaction in the stays direction. The second subindex shows the stay
extremity, 1 is for the pylon and 2 for the deck.

the passive nth stay produced by the TL in the model without temporary supports, N TL
C n , and the effect on the nth stay of the prestress
of all N stays, as presented in Eq. (2).
TL
NOSS
Cn NCn

N
P

eU

NCCnm  eC m

m1

eU

The term NCCnm represents the axial force produced in the nth stay by
a unitary strain introduced in mth stay of the structure, eUCm . This
relation can be expressed more compactly in a matrix form.

fN OSS gN1 fNTL gN1 IMNN  fegN1

The vector of axial forces, fN OSS g; N  1 size, is obtained by adding

the vector of axial forces produced by the TL in an unprestressed
structure, {NTL}, N  1 size, and the effect of the prestress. This prestress can be dened by the product of an Inuence Matrix, [IM],
N  N size, and a vector of imposed strains in the stays, {e}, N  1
size. [IM] shows how the axial forces in all the stays vary when a
unitary strain is introduced into each stay. The vector of imposed
strains is the only unknown in Eq. (3) and, therefore, can be easily
determined from a direct [29] or an iterative [33] process. Although
any of these methods could have been used, in this work the vector
{e} has been dened using the inverse of the Inuence Matrix,
[IM]1, as presented in Eq. (4).



feg IM1 fNOSS g  fN TL g

Nowadays, the modeling of the construction process of cablestayed bridges built on temporary supports can be carried out by
advanced commercial programs which are usually based on the
backward approach. In this approach, the structure is successively
disassembled from the OCS (according to the opposite construction
sequence) until the initial stage, where the bridge deck is supported by the set of temporary and permanent supports, is
achieved. An intuitive interface is available to dene the planned
construction schedule exactly, including all changes in the structural behavior of the bridge. This tool allows the users to activate
or deactivate loads, elements and boundary groups throughout
the modeling of the construction process. The superposition of
stages principle is used. The temporary supports are usually modeled by means of special elements that are only able to counterbalance compressive axial forces. Hence, if tensile stresses are
obtained in any temporary support during the modeling of the construction process, the element is deactivated from the structure by
means of a local iterative process, affecting only this precise construction stage, where its force is redistributed to the rest of the
structure. These programs also include several advanced features
such as powerful solver modules to analyze the optimum forces
of the stays during construction. Another sophisticated feature is
that the stay prestress is introduced by means of imposed forces.
This way of modeling the tensile forces in the stays, although correct, does not provide too much information to the designer. In
fact, it is necessary to develop separate models to dene the stresses in the strands when the strand by strand tensioning procedure
is used. Furthermore, the vast majority of the ordinary calculation
programs do not include such rened features and therefore, the
modeling of the construction process of cable-stayed bridges is
more complex. In the next section a procedure developed by the
authors that solves all these problems, the Backward Algorithm
(BA), is described.
4. Backward Algorithm
A nite element computation procedure that models the construction process of cable-stayed bridges built on temporary supports, the Backward Algorithm (BA), in formally presented in this
section. Its application is limited for an initial design of the construction process. If differences between the predicted and the actual behavior on site are observed, a forward approach [34] is
suggested. The BA, as most of the advanced commercial programs,
is based on the backward approach from which the algorithm receives its name. In the backward approach, the conguration of
any partial structure is determined by disassembling the bridge
from the OCS. The sequence of events in a disassembly analysis is
the opposite of that which occurs during erection. Thus, every
kth stage, Stagek, can be calculated by subtracting an auxiliary
model to the following construction stage as shown in Fig. 4 or
by subtracting Kk auxiliary models from the OCS as presented in
Eq. (5)
k

Stagek Stagek1  Auxiliary Model

Once {e} has been determined, the OSS can be modeled directly by
strains. After calculating the OSS, the last construction stage known
as the OCS can be obtained easily. The importance of calculating the
OCS is that it is the starting point from which the modeling of the
construction process in the backward approach should start.
It is worthy to notice that in current practice {e} is usually obtained through a trial and error process what can be time consuming and not always accurate. In any case, to the best of the authors
knowledge, no such detailed explanation can be found anywhere
[22,33].

OCS 

K
P

Auxiliary Model

kk

Each of these K Auxiliary Modelsk represents the effect of the tensile force introduced by the jack in each of the rows of the Tensioning Matrix [TM].
The BA models the tensile forces in the stays by means of imposed strains instead of imposed forces, as in the case of the most
advanced commercial software. This way of modeling the tensile
forces in the stays has two advantages. First of all, it is not

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necessary to develop separate models to analyze stresses in the

strands when the strand by strand tensioning technique is used.
The second advantage is that the vast majority of the structural
programs include this feature and therefore, the procedure proposed by the BA can be easily reproduced with almost any
software.
The BA includes two hypotheses also considered in the advanced commercial software. First of all, the superposition between stages applies. Secondly, the nonlinear effect of the raising
of the temporary supports is based on a local iterative process. Instead of using special elements that are only able to counterbalance compressive stresses, the temporary supports can be
modeled as vertical xities that are activated if the vertical deection at its connection with the bridge deck in the kth construction
stage, wkT t , is positive. This can be done manually or with a very
simple programming. Fig. 4a, shows the evolution from Stagek+1,
which includes axial forces in the stays, N Ck1
, and the self weight,
n
g1, to Stagek. The subtraction from Stagek+1 of the results of the Auxiliary Modelk,i, can be dened as Stagek,i as presented in Eq. (5). The
nal structural scheme of Stagek is dened by the local iterative
process. At the initial iteration, (i = 1), the Auxiliary Modelk,i has
the same structural scheme (same number of stays and temporary
supports) as Stagek+1. The stay that is being prestressed between
stages k and k + 1 is represented by a lled arrow. The rest of
placed stays, represented by a unlled arrow, are passive. The active forces are modeled by imposed strains, eCP, in the stays that
are being prestressed in each stage. This strain is calculated in such

a way that the axial force dened in the kth row of the [TM] is
achieved. The analysis of each auxiliary model produces some
increments of vertical deections in the bridge deck at the location
of the temporary support T; Dwk;i
T t , and axial forces in the stays,
DN k;i
C n . Once the effect of the tensile force has been subtracted from
Stagek+1, the ith iteration of the local iterative process is nished
and the Stagek,i is obtained. If, in this stage, positive deections in
temporary supports, wk;i
T t , are obtained, the structural system of
the auxiliary model is changed adding additional temporary supports in the next iteration of the local iterative process as shown
in Fig. 4b. The requirement to evaluate if any temporary support
has been borne is presented in Eq. (6).
k;i
k1
wk;i
T t wT t  DwT t P 0

The local iterative process stops when non-positive deections

are found in any temporary support of Stagek.
The input data of the BA consists of the geometry and mechanical properties of the cable-stayed bridge, the location of the temporary supports in the bridge deck, the target loads, TL, the vector
of axial forces in the stays in the OSS, {NOSS}, as well as the incomplete [TM]. This matrix is incomplete because the axial forces of the
rst N  1 stages are unknown and must be calculated taking into
account the entire construction process of the bridge. At the end of
the computation, the lled-in Force Matrix, [FM], is provided. This
matrix is related with [TM] and describes the axial forces in the
placed stays in each of the construction stages. Other output data
consists of the deection, reactions and effort matrices for the dif-

Fig. 4. Superposition of stages in the BA and modeling of temporary supports bearing: (a) ith local iteration, (b) i + 1th local iteration. The active stays are presented by a lled
arrow and the passive stays by unlled arrows.

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J.A. Lozano-Galant et al. / Engineering Structures 40 (2012) 95106

ferent elements of the structure. Among all these matrices, they are
remarkable the two ones that show the evolution of the raising of
the temporary supports. One of these matrices presents the compressive force of each temporary support when borne and the
other one their vertical deection when raised. Finally, compared
with advanced commercial programs, an additional output is provided. This is a vector of strains in the stay that has to be introduced by the jack along the Construction Process, {eCP}. A
summary of the input and output data can be found in Table 1.
The ow chart presented in Fig. 5 summarizes the procedure
followed by the BA. Once the input data has been introduced into
the program, the OSS is stored. Then, auxiliary models that include
the effect of each tensioning stage by means of imposed strains, ek;i
CP ,
are successively subtracted in order to obtain the preceding construction stage. This strain ek;i
CP is calculated in such a way that
the axial force dened in the kth row of the [TM] is achieved. A local iterative process is used to model the nonlinear behavior of the
temporary supports bearing. At the beginning of this iterative process, the Auxiliary Modelk,i has the same number of temporary supports and stays that the Stagek+1. After subtracting Auxiliary Modelk,i
from Stagek+1, the Stagek,i is obtained. In this stage, if positive
deections, wk;i
T t in any temporary support T are measured, Auxiliary
Modelk,i is changed into Auxiliary Modelk,i+1 activating the borne
temporary supports. In addition to this, if tensile reactions, Rk;i
Tt ,
are found in any active temporary support, this is deactivated in
the following auxiliary model (Auxiliary Modelk,i+1). If no positive
k;i
deections, wk;i
T t , nor tensile reactions, RT t are found, the next construction stage, k  1, is calculated. The process stops when the initial stage (k = 0), in which the deck is supported by the set of the
temporary and permanent supports, is achieved. The main advantage of this procedure is that it can be easily reproduced by any
structural software that is able to include either imposed temperature increments or strains in the stays.
In the following section the results of the modeling of the construction process of a simplied cable-stayed bridge obtained by
several advanced commercial programs and those obtained by
the BA are presented.
5. Application of the algorithm
The construction process of a cable-stayed bridge analyzed by
the Backward Algorithm is described in this section. The main
characteristics of this structure and its modeled tensioning process
are rst described. It is to point out that this structure is erected on
a set of temporary supports placed below every stay. Nevertheless,
and without any lack of generality, the algorithm could have been
applied for any other distribution of the temporary supports. Then,
the results obtained by several advanced commercial programs are
presented. Next, these results are compared with those obtained
by the BA. Finally, the BA is applied to obtain the stresses in the rst
strand when using the strand by strand tensioning technique as
well as the stay elongations when prestressed.
5.1. Description of the model
In order to evaluate the efciency of the developed algorithm,
the cable-stayed bridge shown in Fig. 6, is analyzed. This structure
is a simplied model of a project for the city of Wuxi in China. The
bridge has one 54 m high concrete pylon, a 180 m length steel box
girder deck and 18 stayed cables arranged in a semi-harp symmetrical form. The self weight of the bridge deck, g1, and the target
load, TL, are 135 kN/m and 202.5 kN/m respectively. The anchorage
of the two central stays in the bridge deck is separated 15 m from
the pylon. The anchorage of these elements in the pylon is separated 28.8 m from bridge deck. The rest of the stays are uniformly

Table 1
Input and Output data of the BA.
Input data

Output data

Geometry and mechanical properties

Location of the temporary supports
in the deck
Target Load, TL
Axial forces in the stays in the OSS {NOSS}

Force Matrix [FM]

Deections, reactions and efforts
matrices
Raising of temporary support matrix
Strains vector during Construction
Process {eCP}

Uncompleted Tensioning Matrix [TM]

anchored every 9 m along the bridge deck and every 1.8 m along
the pylon.
The structural Finite Element Model (FEM) of the whole bridge
consists of 20 beam elements for the girder and 12 beam elements
for the pylon and 18 special elements for the stays. These last elements have no bending stiffness. The values of the Elasticity Modulus, Inertia and Area of the different elements used in the model
are listed in Table 2.
The cable-stayed bridge is built by means of the temporary supports erection method. The tensioning process has K = 35 stages
and its OSS has been dened by means of the Rigidly Continuous
Beam Criterion [29,30]. It has been assumed that non evolutionary
construction process has been needed to reach this initial stage.
The initial stage on site consists of the bridge deck supported by
a set of T = 18 temporary supports. Then, in the next N  1 stages
the rst 17 stays are placed and prestressed by the jack. The axial
forces to be introduced by the jack in these stages are unknown as
presented in Fig. 2. Those forces correspond with the rst N  1
stages of the Tensioning Matrix, [TM]. During the modeling of the
evolutionary process, once a temporary support has been raised
it is removed from the structure. In the Nth stage the 18th stay is
placed. Afterwards, in the nal N  1 stages the axial forces of all
the rest of stays are successively modied. It is worth noting that
there are innity tensioning strategies that can be applied to the
structure in order to assure the achievement of a certain stage after
completion. This strategy can be characterized by the denition of
the N known axial forces of [TM]. In this example, these forces were
chosen to assure that any bending moments, shear forces, axial
forces and nor deection of the structure exceeded safety ranges
during construction.

5.2. Commercial software

The results of the modeling of the construction process of the
cable-stayed bridge presented in Fig. 6, obtained by two advanced
commercial programs, Midas V7.01 and Wiseplus V1.2 [28], are
presented in this section. The temporary supports have been modeled as special elements that are only able to counterbalance compressive stresses in these programs. The prestressing of the stays
has been modeled by means of imposed axial forces acting in the
anchorages following the direction of the stays and acting inwards,
with no actual cable element present in the structure. This is to say,
the stay effect on the structure is modeled by the forces introduced
by the cable in the anchorages. Once the forces are introduced in
the structure and it is deformed, by means of advanced calculation
tools, the cable element is introduced into the deformed or undeformed structure with an axial force.
The modeling of the construction process starts by dening the
vector of axial forces in the stays in the OSS. From this stage, the
axial forces in the stays in the OCS can be deduced easily. Then,
the incomplete Tensioning Matrix, [TM], is dened by the designer.
Next, the construction process is modeled. The results of this
modeling can be dened by the axial forces in the stays in each

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J.A. Lozano-Galant et al. / Engineering Structures 40 (2012) 95106

Fig. 5. Flow chart of the BA.

construction stage, which are summarized by the Force Matrix,

[FM]. No signicant differences in bending moments, deections
and stay forces between results of both commercial programs
and BA were found. For this reason, only [TM], [FM] and {ecp} calculated by the BA are presented in Fig. 7.
The variation of the axial forces in a certain stay throughout the
construction process can be obtained from [FM] according to the
erection direction. This variation is studied in the rst placed stay,
the 9th one, and the results are presented in Fig. 8. This gure can
be divided into two distinct regions which are separated by the
dotted line. The rst region, located on the left hand side of the gure, starts with the placing and tensioning of the studied stay, in
the construction stage 1. As the stay is being prestressed this stage
is presented by a dotted line. In the following stages of this region,
the structural system is successively changed as new stays are
introduced and the raised temporary supports are removed from
the structure. The location of the prestressed stay has great inuence in the variation of the axial force of all stays. In fact, in the
case of the 9th stay, its axial force is highly increased when the prestressed stay is not located on the same side as the pylon and decreased when located on the same side. The second region, located
on the right hand side of the gure, corresponds with the second

tensioning operation. As all the stays have been already placed

and the set of temporary supports has been removed in the preceding stages, the structural system in these stages remains constant.
As the stay is being prestressed in the 35th construction stage, this
value is represented by a dotted line.
5.3. Backward Algorithm
In this section the cable-stayed bridge presented in Fig. 6 is analyzed according to the Backward Algorithm, (BA). The procedure
used to calculate the construction process by the BA is similar to
that described in the previous section. Nevertheless, the prestress
of the stays has been modeled by means of imposed strains. This
way of modeling has, among some others, the advantage that the
stresses in the strands of the stays can be easily calculated without
the need of separate models even when the strand by strand tensioning technique is used. The BA was implemented in a Fortran
FEM code developed at Technical University of Catalonia and described by Cho in [35].
In this section the axial forces in the stays obtained by the commercial software are compared with those obtained by the BA. This
comparison has been based on the analysis of two Comparison

J.A. Lozano-Galant et al. / Engineering Structures 40 (2012) 95106

c1 c2 c3 c4 c5 c6 c7 c8 c9

103

c10 c11 c12 c13 c14 c15 c16 c17 c18

Fig. 6. Cable-stayed bridge. Dimensions in m.

Table 2
Properties of the elements of the FEM.

Girder
Pylon
Cable

Elasticity modulus (MPa)

Inertia (m )

Area (m )

206,000
33,500
195,000

4.2
14.4
0.0

1.7200
8.5400
0.0072

Parameters, (CP). The rst one, CP1, is based on the differences in

absolute value along the K stages and the N stays. As these values
will be different for each stay and each construction stage, the
maximum value has been used. The denition of this parameter
for the comparison between the results obtained by the BA and
those obtained by the commercial software is presented in Eq. (7).
BA

CP1 Maximum

Softwarek

jNC n k  N Cn

!
j

BA

NCn k

n : 1N;

k : 1K

BA

The term NC n k represents the axial force in the nth stay calculated by
Softwarek
the BA in the kth construction stage while NC n
represents the
same force calculated by the commercial software. The second comparison parameter, CP2, is based on the differences of axial forces in
all placed stays for a certain construction stage k in absolute value.
As this parameter is different for each construction stage, the maximum value is used. Eq. (8) shows the denition of this parameter
for the quadratic comparison between the BA and the commercial
software.


PN
!
BAk
Softwarek 




 n1 N  N
k : 1K
CP2 Maximum 1   PN C n BA Cn BA



N k  N k 
n1

Cn

Cn

The comparison of axial forces in the stays can be summarized as

presented in Table 3. This table shows the value of the comparison
parameters obtained after comparing the results obtained by the
commercial programs and those obtained by the BA. Both parameters are presented in terms of a percentage of the value obtained by
the BA.
The analysis of these results showed negligible differences between the results obtained by the two commercial programs and
those obtained by the BA.
5.3.1. Analysis of the strand by strand tensioning technique
The BA has, among some others, the advantage that the stresses
in the strands of the stays can be easily calculated without the
need of separate models, even when the strand by strand tensioning technique is used. This prestressing method is more and more
often used as it eliminates the need for heavy erection equipment.

The method has several variants according to the patent used by

each company, but basically consists on prestressing a rst single
strand up to a dened stress. Once the strand is anchored, the rest
of the strands are successively prestressed one by one until their
stresses match the stress of the rst strand. It is to highlight that
the rst strand is losing tensile stresses when the others strands
are prestressed, due to the elastic shortening of the stays.
The strand by strand tensioning technique has been modeled in
this section. The fty strands forming each stay are successively
introduced into the structure and prestressed in the rst N stages.
At the end of every stage, the complete stay will have been introduced and prestressed. The strain that is needed to achieve in
the full stay the axial force dened in the corresponding kth row
of [TM], that is, ekCP is successively applied into each of the strands
when placed to simulate its tensioning. In the modeling, when a
new strand is introduced and prestressed the axial forces of all
placed strands are modied. At the end of the stage, when all the
strands are placed and prestressed with the same ekCP , all the forces
in the strands are equal and the force of the stay matches the value
dened in the kth row of [TM].
Fig. 9a shows the stress in the rst placed strand of the 9th stay
in the rst construction stage throughout the strand by strand tensioning stages when the imposed strain is achieved in each of the
strands. In this construction stage, the structural system consists of
the set of the temporary and permanent supports. When the rst
strand is placed, a certain stress is obtained. Then, as new strands
are successively introduced into the structure, the stress of the rst
placed strand is successively reduced. When all the strands have
been placed and prestressed, the stress of the rst strand is reduced 84.3 MPa respect to its value when rst prestressed. This implies a prestressing loss of the rst strand of 20.2%. When the 28th
strand is introduced and prestressed, highlighted in Fig. 9a, the axial force introduced into the stay is such that is able to unload the
rst temporary support. Therefore, the structural system of the
bridge changes as the unloaded temporary support is removed
from the model. In the following KN stages, the stays will be restressed, using the strand by strand tensioning technique. In order
to do so, the imposed strain in the strands when they were rst
prestressed is successively changed to the one that corresponds
with the stage where the strands are being re-stressed. Fig. 9b
shows the stress in the rst re-stressed strand of the 9th stay in
the 35th construction stage, after its imposed strain is changed
from e1CP to e35
CP . As all the stays were placed and the temporary supports were unloaded and removed from the model in the preceding
construction stages, the structural system is that presented in
Fig. 9b.

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J.A. Lozano-Galant et al. / Engineering Structures 40 (2012) 95106

Fig. 7. Tensioning Matrix, [TM], and Force Matrix, [FM], and strain vector feCP g obtained by the BA. The stays that are being prestressed in each stage are framed. Axial forces
in kN and strains dimensionless.

Table 3
Maximum differences in the comparison parameters referring to a percentage of the
results obtained by the BA.

CP1
CP2

Midas (%)

Wiseplus (%)

0.0014
0.0001

0.0025
0.0002

This structural system remains constant throughout the restressing stage. When all the strands have been re-stressed, the
stress of the rst strand is reduced 1.70 MPa respect to its value
when re-stressed. The increment of axial force along the restressed stage is 12.5 kN, which is the 5.2% of that axial force intro34
duced by the jack, that is, N 35
C 9  N C 9 . The comparison of the reduction percentages of the stress in the rst strand obtained in the 1st
and the 35th construction stages showed that lower reductions of
stress were calculated when the stay is re-stressed. This can be explained by the fact that in the re-stressing stage the axial force
introduced by the jack is lower as well the structural system of
the bridge is stiffer as all the stays were placed in the preceding
stages.

5.3.2. Stay elongations

Another advantage of modeling the construction process with
imposed strains instead of imposed forces is the fact that the elongation of the stays to be measured in the tensioning operation can
be easily predicted. Calculation of stay elongation, DLC n , is very
important for controlling the safe and accurate prestress of the
stays on site.
The calculation of the stay elongation can be approximated by
the product of the calculated imposed strain introduced in the stay
in the kth stage, ekCP , by the unstressed length of the prestressed
stay LC n as presented in Eq. (9).

DLC n ekCP  LC n

To facilitate the comparison with other calculation methods, the

stay elongations obtained in the 9th stay are summarized in Table 4. The comparison of Stage1, where the stay is placed and prestressed, and Stage35, where the stay is re-stressed, showed that
larger elongations are obtained in Stage1 as larger axial forces are
introduced by the jack.
This information is not only important to control the correct
and safe prestressing of the stay on site. It also help the designer
to control if the anchor wedge bites the strand in the same position
several times during the prestressing process. This fact could

J.A. Lozano-Galant et al. / Engineering Structures 40 (2012) 95106

105

3500

AXIAL FORCE (kN)

3400

3300
3200
3100
3000
2900

2800
2700
2600

2500

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

CONSTRUCTION STAGE
Fig. 8. Axial forces (kN) of the 9th stay along the construction stages (kN). Stages 1 and 35, where the stay is prestressed, are dotted.

Fig. 9. Stresses in the rst strand of the 9th stay and structural system of the bridge throughout the local tensioning process (MPa): (a) rst construction stage, (b) last
construction stage, which is 35th.

Table 4
DLC 9 (mm) in the Stage1 and Stage35 obtained by different tensioning
processes.
Stay 9
Stage1
Stage35

80.48
5.84

jeopardize the integrity of the strand along the time due to fatigue
problems.
6. Conclusions and future work
When the environmental factors or the requirement of the
foundations do not prevent the placement of the temporary supports during construction, the temporary supports erection method uses to be the most economic way of building cable-stayed
bridges. Unlike its alternative construction method, the cantilever
erection method, no specic research based on the modeling of
the construction process of cable-stayed bridges built on temporary supports has been found by the authors. This paper aims to ll
this gap by providing a computation procedure, the Backward
Algorithm (BA).
The modeling proposed by the BA consists of disassembling the
cable-stayed bridge from the Objective Completion Stage (OCS)
according to the opposite sequence of events which occurs during
erection on site. The BA presents several advantages compared

with the rest of modeling proposed procedures: (1) Unlike the advanced commercial programs, the BA models the prestress of the
stays by means of imposed strains instead of forces. Therefore, it
is not necessary to develop separate models to calculate the stress
variation in the rst strand of a stay when the strand by strand tensioning technique is used. Knowing these stresses is highly recommended because a more efcient control of the construction
process can be carried out on site thus increasing safety during
construction. (2) The stay elongation when prestressed can be easily calculated when the stay is prestressed. This information is not
only important to control the correct and safe prestressing of the
stay on site. It also help the designer to control if the anchor wedge
bites the strand in the same position several times during the prestressing process. (3) Finally, the main advantage of this process is
its simplicity as its results can be easily reproduced by any structural software. This way, faster calculation can be carried out and
the procedure can be efciently used to initially design the construction process of cable-stayed bridges.
The numerical analysis of the cable-stayed bridge studied in
this paper showed that non-representative differences were found
between the results obtained by two studied commercial programs, and those obtained by the BA. Nevertheless, the BA can only
approximate the effects of the time-dependent phenomena, unless
a global iterative process or a backward-forward analysis is performed. To take into account these phenomena, the more complex
but more suitable procedure presented in [34] is proposed. In future works this algorithm will be adapted to take into account
the evolutionary construction of the bridge superstructure.

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J.A. Lozano-Galant et al. / Engineering Structures 40 (2012) 95106

Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank the support provided by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacin and by Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha (Spain) through the research Projects BIA200913056 and PII2I09-0129-4085 (Optimization of the construction
process of cable-stayed bridges built on temporary supports), directed by Jos Turmo.
Part of this work was done through a collaborative agreement
between University of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain) and Tongji University (China). This included an exchange of faculty and scholars.
The nancial support from Kwang-Hua Foundation from College of
Civil Engineering of Tongji University and from the International
Relation Ofce of University of Castilla-La Mancha is greatly
appreciated.
Finally, the authors also want to thank the support provided by
J.A. LLombart and J. Fernndez from Eipsa (Spain), R. Snchez-de
Len and C. Bernal from AIA (Spain), E.W. Vieira from University
of Castilla-La Mancha and by Y. Zhao from Tongji University.
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