Simulating Nonlinear Elastic Behaviour of Cables Using an Iterative Method

Summary

This contribution introduces a novel approach to simulate the nonlinear elastic bending behaviour of cables. Bending tests on real cables with complex structures clearly show the existence of nonlinear constitutive bending behaviour. In our current framework, only constant effective stiffness parameters are used. In order to enable nonlinear bending behaviour within the current framework, we propose an iterative method where, at each step, constant stiffness parameters are used and are updated according to the current cable state. The presented method is demonstrated by means of numerical experiments. Moreover, the inverse problem, i.e. the determination of state-dependent bending stiffness characteristic, is considered.