RESEARCH ARTICLE
Criteria for Preliminary Design of an Arched Steel Bridge on Shallow Foundation Under Soil Liquefaction Conditions
Isabella Vassilopoulou1, *, Vasiliki Kaymenaki1, Charis J. Gantes1, George Bouckovalas2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2017Volume: 11
Issue: Suppl-5, M10
First Page: 1170
Last Page: 1190
Publisher ID: TOCIEJ-11-1170
DOI: 10.2174/1874149501711011170
Article History:
Received Date: 07/12/2016Revision Received Date: 27/03/2017
Acceptance Date: 02/06/2017
Electronic publication date: 29/12/2017
Collection year: 2017
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Introduction:
The research is based on a proposed new foundation design method of bridges on liquefiable soil, consisting of using a shallow foundation and exploiting the liquefiable soil layer as natural seismic isolation, replacing thus the commonly employed deep foundation method. The use of this concept may be hindered by detrimental effects, such as large displacements and rotations that are expected to take place at the foundation of the structure during a strong seismic event, associated with permanent displacements due to the liquefaction phenomenon.
Methods:
The aim of the current study is to investigate the response of an arched steel bridge with two simply supported spans to displacements and rotations induced by soil liquefaction, delineate the acceptable limits of such ground movements that the bridge can sustain, avoiding the collapse of the superstructure, and define criteria for the preliminary design of the spread footing of the middle pier. To that effect, nonlinear analyses are performed, taking into account geometric and material nonlinearities. Displacements and rotations are imposed at the base of the pier and their amplitude is gradually increased until the first group of structural elements that reach failure is detected.
Results and Conclusion:
The values of displacements and rotations, for which failure occurs, specify the tolerable design limits. This is a first step towards investigating the feasibility of the above concept for bridges of this type.
