NONSMOOTH SEISMIC RESPONSE ANALYSIS OF A BENCHMARK STRAIGHT BRIDGE WITH DECK-ABUTMENT IMPACT-INDUCED ROTATION

Abstract eng:
Deck-abutment contact, during earthquake excitation, might alter the boundary conditions at the deck level and activate a mechanical behavior unforeseen during the design of the bridge. Occasionally, this discrepancy between the assumed and the actual seismic behavior has detrimental consequences for the bridge e.g. pier damage, deck unseating or even collapse. A recent insightful shake-table test of a scaled deck-abutment bridge model [1], showed unexpected in-plane rotations even though the deck was straight. These contactinduced rotations produced significant residual displacements and damage to the piers and the bents. The present paper utilizes the measured response of the deck-abutment system to examine the validity of a proposed nonsmooth dynamic analysis framework. The results show that the proposed approach satisfactorily captures the planar rigid-body dynamics of the deck which is characterized by deck-abutment contact. Further, the study brings forward the role of friction on the physical mechanism behind the rotation of straight bridges. It underlines the importance of considering the frictional contact forces during deck-abutment interaction even for straight bridges, which are typically neglected. Finally, the paper comparatively assesses the nonsmooth approach vs. the compliance (or gap element) approach with respect to their ability to predict the measured response.

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