The structural analysis of suspension bridges, including the erection phase, has been changed from deflection theory to finite displacement theory by adopting the matrix method. In the modeling of an actual suspension bridge, it is necessary to use elements with special stiffness to represent the conditions of the girder, and to satisfy the compatibility conditions. The analysis program LADAN, whch is included in a total system, satisfies design's conditions of suspension bridges completely, and has various special analytical functions.

A suspension bridges analysis requires not only to consider the geometrical non-linear problems, but also to efficiently deal with enormous amount of input and output data. Specially, hundreds of program runs are necessary in order to analyze because of a suspension bridge for erection stages. However, the recent development of the computer technology resulted more powerful and cheaper Engineering Work Station (EWS), which can deal with structures in many degrees of freedom with high speed, and can be easily linked to Personal Computer (PC). To consider such circumstances, the authors developed a small scale LAN (Local Area Network) using an EWS and several PCs to function as the total analysis system for suspension bridges with truss forms.

In this paper, the outline of the total system is described at first, then follows a brief explanation about LADAN. The pre and post-processor systems with GUI are explained with an example to show the effectiveness of the system.

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