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Abstract

Geometric non-linearity becomes an issue of great concern that cannot be overlooked in the analysis of cable-supported structures since their material properties may be in an elastic range but they exhibit nonlinear behavior when loaded. This study intends to present an analytical approach for analyzing the large deflection behavior of a guyed column pulled by a pre-tensioned cable at different stages of installation. The column is assumed to be naturally straight and inextensible, and each cable is modeled as an equivalent tensile bar neglecting the sag effect due to self-weight. Based on an elliptic integral formulation, closed-form solutions are derived for the large deflection of a guyed column pulled by a pre-tensioned cable with different deformed configurations. The interaction between the nonlinear deflection of the guyed column and the sequentially applied cable forces are fully taken into account. The analytical result indicates that the larger aspect ratio (h/l) of the cable anchor distance (h) to the column height (l) may result in smaller critical tip slope

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