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Longitudinal nonlinear seismic response of long bridges

University of British Columbia

While seismic bridge failures resulting from deck unseating is not as common an occurrence as column failures, they nevertheless cause extensive damage in the bridges they affect. Deck unseating happened as recently as in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, and has generated renewed interest in the subject. This study used artificially generated ground motions to simulate the earthquake. The parameters include the restrainer strength, friction in the joint and the yield strength of the bents. The initial gap opening and the restrainer slack was not examined. The computer modeling performed in this study discovered that some parameters may be more important than others in limiting the range of movement in the expansion joint. The strength of the restrainer significantly affected the performance of the joint. Friction also played an important part in reducing the movement in the expansion joint. However, the strength of the bent was not a significant factor in determining how much travel would occur in the joint.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-05-04

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/7819

Civil Engineering

University of British Columbia

UBCV

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