Abstract
This paper proposes a novel twin-column pier with a steel shear link (SSL) installed in the cap beam to reduce seismic damage in the transverse direction. The SSL interrupts the rigid cap beam and relieves the coupled deformation of the two columns. Benefits of the yieldable SSL in the event of a strong earthquake are the longer effective deformation of a column and limited axial compressive load. A benchmark reinforced-concrete bridge is employed in a seismic performance evaluation to verify the damage reduction performance of the novel twin-column pier with an SSL. Five numerical models, calibrated in a physical component test, are built in ABAQUS; that is, one original bridge and four novel bridges with different SSLs and accompanying configurations. Modal analysis shows that introducing the SSL does not change the overall structural dynamic characteristics. The nonlinear dynamic analysis results indicate that adopting the SSL effectively reduces the peak compressive strain of the reinforced-concrete column, but energy dissipation from the SSL is negligible compared with the total inputted seismic energy. There is no evident change in the macro seismic response of the twin-column pier when using the SSL, such as overall drift and structural damping ratio. Moreover, a transverse continuous main girder is suggested for realizing an additional restoring moment at the column top, which further reduces compressive strain.
Highlights
Well-designed reinforced-concrete (RC) bridges have avoided collapse during earthquakes in recent years but RC piers have still suffered severe damage, for which rehabilitation is difficult (Bhuiyan and Alam 2013; Ishibashi and Tsukishima 2009; Han et al 2009)
This paper proposes a novel twin-column pier with a replaceable steel shear link (SSL) in the middle of the cap beam
6 Conclusion This paper proposed a novel twin-column pier with a replaceable SSL for damage control in the event of transverse seismic motion
Summary
Well-designed reinforced-concrete (RC) bridges have avoided collapse during earthquakes in recent years but RC piers have still suffered severe damage, for which rehabilitation is difficult (Bhuiyan and Alam 2013; Ishibashi and Tsukishima 2009; Han et al 2009). The overall deformation mode changed such that the main structural components (i.e., the steel beam and column) remained elastic To this end, structural control design is an effective approach for reducing damage in a seismic event. This paper proposes a novel twin-column pier with a replaceable steel shear link (SSL) in the middle of the cap beam This design is expected to change the overall deformation mode of the twin-column pier and dissipate energy under transverse seismic excitation. The strain-stress curve points to the peak value (σmax, εmax) in history with reduced stiffness until achieving yielding stress (Gao and Zhang 2013) This model was very effective to reproduce the pinching effect in the reinforced concrete structure under large deformation (Deng et al 2019b). This intensity corresponds to peak ground motion accelerations (PGAs) of 0.07 g, 0.2 g, 0.4 g, and 0.51 g for a service level earthquake (SLE), design-based earthquake (DBE), maximum considered earthquake (MCE), and very rare earthquake (VRE) respectively
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