Bending Stiffness of Parallel Wire Cables Including Interfacial Slips among Wires

Cables of parallel wires are idealized as laminated beams including interlayer slips to consider the effect of interfacial slips among wires on their bending stiffness. The governing differential equations for the bending of laminated beams are then derived and solved analytically under either uniformly distributed load or midspan concentrated force. Consequently, the equivalent bending stiffness (EBS) of the cable is obtained analytically, which is significantly dependent on the slip rigidity between the layers. Using the experimental results of bending tests of cables of parallel wires in the literature, the relationship between the slip rigidity and the average tensile stress of cable is established. The factors influencing the EBS of cables are studied and the EBS of cables with common cross sections is provided to demonstrate the presented method.