Geometric Nonlinear Analysis of the Catenary Cable Element Based on UPFs of ANSYS

Abstract

The catenary cable element has more advantages than other nonlinear truss elements but is less used in commercial programs. In this paper, the initial geometric configuration of the element is solved iteratively by the dichotomous method. Then the Updated Lagrangian (UL) Formulation for the two-node catenary cable element is combined with the element secondary development tool provided by ANSYS platform-User Programmable Features (UPFs) to develop a three- dimensional cable element—user101. The algorithm and procedure of this paper are verified through examples and a real bridge. The study shows that the developed cable element user101 is more accurate and faster than the ANSYS self-contained element. The method can effectively use the computational theory of nonlinear cable elements with catenary geometry and combine it with ANSYS commercial program, which saves computation time without reducing accuracy and has good practicality.