To model external tendons, it is necessary to do the followinga series of tips are listed as follows:

• Model the tendon as elements ( tendons as objects, rather than as loads). This assures that the tension is carried in the tendon where it is external. Modeling as loads is possible, but does require further considerations.

• Make sure that the tendon is not inside the bounding box of any object where you want it to be external. If the tendon falls outside of all objects, this is automatic. If the tendon is inside of a box girder, you may have a problem if you model the girder as a frame element. You can either model the box girder as areas (shells) so that the tendon falls inside the open space within the box, or if you do want to use frame elements, then you can easily define a group of objects that the tendon is allowed to load, and exclude from the group those elements where the tendon is external.

• Modify the losses to account for the loads, to ensure that tension carries through the external portion of each tendon. It is possible to model external tendons as loads, though additional considerations are then necessary.

• Ensure that tendons are not within the bounding box for any object to which tendons should be external. When tendons are within a box girder which is modeled as a frame object, complexities may arise. The box girder may instead be modeled using shells such that external portions are positioned within the hollow region of the section. As an alternative, a group may be defined which specifies those objects which the tendon may load, then external objects may be excluded from the group.

• Modify losses to account for external segments. It may be most accurate to do this by using model separate tendon objects for the internal and external segments. The , then distributed losses could may be set to zero for the external segmentsportions, and non-zero nonzero for the internal segments. If the cable tendon is essentially all entirely external except for limited a few connection points, then a single tendon with zero distributed losses set to zero would be adequateshould be sufficent.

See Also

• Modeling different types of tendons

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