THE STABLE CURVE AND TENSION FOR A CABLE-LIKE FLEXIBLE STRUCTURE

An equilibrium shape and tension analysis of a cable-like flexible structure subjected to arbitrary nodal loads was investigated. A set of recursion equations that describe stable state of the structure is derived from virtual work principle, and an iteration strategy to obtain a numerical solution for specified case is also proposed. The results in given example problems indicate that the algorithm has advantages over finite element method in precision and convergence for the stable curve and tension calculation.