Analysis of Key Factors in Cable Force Calculation for Cable-Stayed Bridges

Three methods for calculating cable force (analytic method, fitting method and finite element method) are analyzed and compared. The effects of boundary condition, spectrum resolution, sampling time, and number of sampling points on the precision of cable force identification are discussed, and error analysis is conducted. The results of three methods applied to a practical project are significantly less than the design value. Comparatively, the result of finite element method is the closest to the design value. Moreover, their computational precision and error are compared and analyzed. The precision of frequency identification of cables, long cables in particular, is strongly affected by frequency resolution. If the frequency resolution is included in calculating the cable force, the identification error can be reduced greatly.