A Comparative Study of Thermal and Seismic Behaviour of a Bridge with Traditional and Isolation Bearings

Abstract eng:
Design of bearings for earthquake displacements and resistance is important for safety of bridges. Traditionally, bearings have been designed for movements generated due to temperature, shrinkage and creep. However, the bearings have to play a vital role during earthquake also. Most of the failures during past earthquakes have been reported due to failure of bearings and substructure. Therefore, it is an important task to select suitable bearings for both thermal and seismic conditions. This paper examines the thermal and seismic response of (i) Traditional Roller-Rocker bearings, and (ii) Isolation Bearings viz. Elstomeric Bearings with and without Dampers, Friction Pendulum Systems (FPS) for a three-span continuous bridge. The effect of arrangement of the bearings for the bridge has also been examined. The range of the time period for the different arrangements of the bearings for the continuous bridge has also been obtained. A three dimensional model of the bridge has been developed. A site specific design response spectrum with a set of five acceleration time histories have been used for study of the seismic response. It has been found that isolation bearings have much better thermal and seismic performance than traditional rocker and roller bearings. The performances of FPS systems are quite satisfactory. However, in respect of restoring coefficient, the performances of the Viscous Damper alongwith Elastomeric Bearings are better than the FPS systems.

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