Three-dimensional geometrically nonlinear analysis of slack cable structures

• Method for three-dimensional large-displacement analysis of slack cable structures.
• Using specialized substructuring technique for the analysis of slack cables.
• Relatively simple formulation for iterative form-finding of slack cables.
• Detection and restriction of the instabilities in the overall structural analysis.
• Suitable for collapse analysis problems with large displacements and rotations.

An effective iterative method is proposed for three-dimensional large-displacement analysis of structures consisting of slack cables as the primary load-bearing system. This approach takes advantage of substructuring technique that is specially tailored to address the analysis and form-finding problem of slack cables subjected to arbitrary loads, and to reduce the overall analysis costs. At the overall structural level, a robust procedure is employed for detecting the instabilities and limiting the corresponding incremental displacements. The effectiveness of the proposed method for the analysis of highly unstable or variable-form structures is demonstrated by a number of analysis examples of slack cable systems.