Seismic analysis of a cable stayed bridge in Talavera de la Reina, Spain

A cable stayed bridge with a signature design destined to be an icon in the region has been recently built in the city of Talavera de la Reina in central Spain. Although Spain is a country with no significant seismic peril, the recent earthquake that took place in the city of Lorca in the year 2011, with a Richter magnitude value of 5.1, has promoted studies of several structures of social and economical relevance. Therefore, a comprehensive analysis of seismic effects of the mentioned cable stayed bridge has been performed. The study carried out included seismic analysis in both the frequency and time domain, considering several sources of nonlinearity as cable sag, cable prestress distribution and large displacements. Nonlinear seismic time history analyses were conducted considering artificial earthquakes in the three spatial directions. In addition to the dynamic analysis a computer video was produced showing the expected deformation of the bridge for each of the natural modes of vibration and the seismic event. The bridge model developed for the visualization is very precise and contains many details, so the perception of the viewer of the computer video will be very similar to what will be seen if a real earthquake would happen in the bridge site.