chapter 5 FUNICULAR STRUCTURES: CABLES AND ARCHES SA 178 INTRODUCTION 5.1.1. Funicular Structures Few types of structures have so consistently appealed to the imagination of builders as either the arch or the hanging cable. These two apparently different types of structures share some fundamental characteristics that cause them to be more closely related than might initially appear, particularly in terms of their basic structural behavior. A cable subjected to external loads will obviously deform in a way dependent on the magnitude and location of the external forces. The form acquired is often called the fimicular shape of the cable (the term “funicular” is derived from the Latin word for “rope"). Only tension forces will be developed in the cable. Inverting the structural form obtained will yield a new structure that is exactly analogous to the cable structure except that compression rather than tension forces are developed. Theoretically, the shape found could be constructed of simply stacked elements that are nonrigidly connected (a “compression chain”) and the resultant structure would be stable. Any slight variation in the nature of the applied loading, however, would mean that the structure would cease to be funicular in shape and bending would develop under the new loading, with the result that complete collapse couldoccur since the nonrigidly connected blocks cannot resist this bending. Since the forms of both the tensile and compressive structures that are derived in the manner described above are both related to the notion of a loaded hanging rope, they are collectively referred to as funicular structures. 5.1.2 Cables Funicular structures have been used throughout history. Considering tension struc- tures first, there are many early recorded examples existent. The flexible suspension bridge which was initially developed in China, India, and South America, for example, is of great antiquity. While most early bridges used rope, often made from bamboo, there is recorded evidence of bridges made using chains in China as early as the first century A.p, In addition to the varicties of tents that used ropes, cable structures also found application in some major buildings. A rope cable structure, for example, was used in about A.D. 70 to roof a Roman amphitheater (Figure 5-1). Still it was in con- nection with suspension bridges that the use of cables as theoretically understood structural elements was developed. This theoretical understanding is actually rather recent, since the suspension bridge remained relatively unknown in Europe (although a type of chain-suspended structure was built in the Swiss Alps in 1218), where most developments in structural theory were occurring, until the sixteenth century, when, in 1595, Fausto Veranzio published a drawing of a suspension bridge. It was not until 1741 that a permanent iron chain footbridge, located in Durham County, England, was finally built. This bridge was probably the first significant suspension bridge in Europe. It failed, however, to establish a precedent. ‘A major turning point in the evolution of the suspension bridge occurred in the early part of the nineteenth century in America, when James Findley developed a suspension bridge capable of carrying vehicular traffic. His initial bridge, built in 1801 over Jacobs Creek in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, used a flexible chain of wrought iron links. Findley’s real innovation was not the cable itself, however, but the intro- Dw (Dur) FIGURE 5-1 Cable roof structure over Roman Colosseum, circa ap. 70. Rope cables anchored to masts spanned in a radial fashion across the open structure supported a movable sunshade that could be drawn across to cover the arena. The span of the structure was 620 ft (188 m) along the major axis and 513 ft (156 m) along the minor axis. (From Diirm.) chapter 5 / FUNICULAR STRUCTURES; CABLES AND ARCHES 179180 duction of a stiffened bridge deck in which the stiffening was achieved by longitudinal trusses made of wood, The use of a stiffened deck kept the supporting cable from changing shape, and consequently changing the shape of the road surface it supported, by distributing concentrated vehicular loads over a larger portion of the cable (Figure 5-2), With this innovation the modern suspension bridge was born. The work of Findley became known to others, possibly even to the great builder Thomas Telford in England, who designed the bridge over the Menai Strait in Wales (1818-1826) Louis Navier, the great French mathematician, discussed Findley's work in his classic book on suspension bridges, Rapport et Mémoire sur les Ponts Suspendus, published in 1823, in which he gave Findley credit for the introduction of the stiffened bridge deck and provided a way for other bridge builders to become aware of his work. Other great suspension bridges were built in rapid succession, including the beautiful Clifton Bridge in England by Isombard Brunel, John Roebling’s Brooklyn Bridge in 1883, and a host of other major bridges. Significant modern bridges include the bridge over the Messina Straits, with a middle span of over 5000 ft (1525 m), and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, with a middie span of 4260 ft (1300 m). The application of cables to buildings other than tents developed more slowly because of the lesser need to span large distances and the intrinsic problems of using cables when they were applied. Although James Bogardus submitted a proposal for the Crystal Palace of the New York Exhibition of 1853 in which the roof of a circular cast-iron building, 700 ft (213 m) in diameter, was to be suspended from radiating chains anchored to a central tower, the pavilion structures of the Nijny-Novgorod (a) Dead load of the structure is Ul uniformly distributed. Cable assumes parabolic shape. (b) Live loads are movable and often concentrated. With a noncigid bridge deck, the cable and bridge deck change shape under live loads. (c) By making the bridge deck rigid sa the longitudinal direction, the forces on the support cable caused by a concentrated load are more uniformly distributed. The cable shape und deck shape remain relatively constant. FIGURE 5-2 Suspension bridge structures: use of rigid bridge deck. part Il / ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS.