Evaluation of localised loading on suspension bridges

The deck girder moments and suspender-cable tensions caused by the application of localised loading to a conventionally articulated suspension bridge with a slender deck girder are expressed in a generalised and normalised form. Comparison with the analogous solutions for localised loading on cable-stayed bridges shows considerable similarity in practical numerical results, despite the disparity between the algebraic forms resulting from the differences of the basic mechanics of the suspension-cable and straight-stay structural systems.