Research on creep constitutive model of steel cables

•A long-term creep experiment of small-diameter steel cables was carried out.•The creep constitutive model of cables was established using viscoelasticity.•An iterative formula suitable for ANSYS finite element analysis was derived.•The time-dependent performance of a cable net considering creep was investigated. Creep and stress relaxation of steel cables caused by long-term loads will affect the mechanical behavior of tensile structures. A creep experiment of small-diameter steel cables was conducted at normal temperatures to determine the creep constitutive model of the cables using the time–creep strain data for different prestress levels. The viscoelastic Kelvin chain model was used to fit the data, and the creep constitutive equation of the cable was determined. An iterative expression suitable for ANSYS finite element analysis was derived, and the constitutive model was validated with MATLAB programs. The creep constitutive equation was used for the time-dependent analysis of a cable net structure. The results showed that creep caused stress relaxation of the cable net and caused structural element displacements.