Analysis of local compressive behaviour of concrete bed under an embedded cast iron cable saddle

The cable saddle on top of pylon not only helps the main cable pass through the summit of design form, but also transmits the tremendous force to the pylons. An imbedded cast iron cable saddle is proposed for a single pylon and two spans cable stayed bridge. Due to the arched shape of the cable saddle, the local compressive pressure on concrete bed may not be uniform. A plain strain FE model and A solid FE model is adopted to investigate the stress distribution in concrete foundation. The reduce factor for nonuniform local compression is about 0.73. This cable saddle structure can meet the local bearing capacity via theoretical verification, which could provide an example for the similar type of structures.