Inelastic Seismic Response of Extended Pile-Shaft-Supported Bridge Structures

Abstract

Nonlinear static and dynamic analyses were used to evaluate the inelastic seismic response of bridge and viaduct structures supported on extended cast-in-drilled-hole (CIDH) pile shafts. The nonlinear dynamic analyses used a beam-on-nonlinear-Winkler foundation (BNWF) framework to model the soil-pile interaction, nonlinear fiber beam-column elements to model the reinforced concrete sections, and one-dimensional site response analyses for the free-field soil profile response. The study included consideration of ground motion characteristics, site response, lateral soil resistance, structural parameters, geometric nonlinearity (P-Δ effects), and performance measures. Results described herein focus on how the ground motion characteristics and variations in structural configurations affect the performance measures important for evaluating the inelastic seismic response of these structures. Presented results focus on a representative dense soil profile and thus are not widely applicable to dramatically different soil sites.