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.