A comparative study to determine seismic response of the box culvert wing wall under influence of soil-structure interaction considering different ground motions

Abstract

The present study deals with evaluation of the effects of different ground motions, backfill-structure interaction (BSI) and soil-structure interaction (SSI) on dynamic response of a box culvert wing wall. In obtaining numerical results, five different earthquake records with different frequency contents, five different backfill types and four different subsoil types are taken into account. Firstly, a finite element model (FEM) and three analytical models are proposed for analysis of the wing wall-backfill system under fixed-base case, and these fixed-base models are compared with each other through both modal analysis and displacement time-history analysis under the assumption of linear-elasticity. After validating the ability of the FEM approach, by extending the fixed-base FEM to take account of elastoplastic behavior of soil and SSI, a three dimensional (3-D) model has been described, and 3-D nonlinear analyses have been carried out in time domain. The numerical results show that the seismic response of the wing walls are affected remarkably by the SSI, BSI and frequency content of the earthquake.