Reliability-assisted determination of partial factors for the design of main cables considering secondary stress effect

The main cables of suspension bridges typically serve as the primary load-carrying components. Determination of reasonable main cable sizes is crucial for the bridge safety and functionality. The limit state design method with the combination of partial factors has been widely used in multiple countries as a substitute for the factor of safety design method. Determination of reasonable partial factors that can properly satisfy a target reliability index has received much attention. However, most of the existing research neglects the secondary stress effect, which can be of a significant magnitude, for the main cable. To address the gap, this paper proposes a reliability-assisted framework for the determination of the partial factors considering both first and secondary stresses for the main cable design. Three suspension bridges with main span lengths ranging from 850 m to 2300 m are used as the engineering background. Results show that the recommended design factors can be used in the preliminary design stage to facilitate a reasonable cable design that yields the target reliability index, therefore validating the feasibility of the proposed framework.