Historic masonry arch bridges are vital components of transportation systems in many countries worldwide, ensuring the ready access of goods and services to millions of people. The structural failure of these historic structures would severely and adversely impact the economies of these nations due to the massive disruptions of transportation systems accompanying such failures. To successfully maintain these aging masonry structures, performance assessment must incorporate the unique mechanical characteristics of masonry. Therefore, the preferred analysis technique must go beyond a linear approach. This study assesses the earthquake performance of a restored historical masonry arch bridge through nonlinear finite element analysis incorporating the DruckerPrager damage criterion. The case study structure is the Mikron Arch Bridge, a nineteenth century Ottoman Era structure built over the Firtina River near Rize, Turkey, and restored in 1998. The Mikron Arch Bridge was first subjected to ambient vibration testing, during which accelerometers were placed at several points on the bridge span to record the bridge vibratory response. The investigators then used Enhanced Frequency Domain Decomposition and Stochastic Subspace Identification techniques to extract the experimental natural frequencies, mode shapes, and damping ratios from these measurements. Experimental results were compared with those obtained by the linear finite element analysis of the bridge. Good agreement between mode shapes was observed during this comparison, though natural frequencies disagree by 8-10%. The boundary conditions of the linear finite element model of Mikron Arch Bridge are adjusted such that the analytical predictions agree with the ambient vibration test results. By introducing the Drucker-Prager damage criterion, the calibrated linear FE model was next extended into a nonlinear model. Nonlinear analysis of seismic behavior of Mikron arch bridge was performed considering the acceleration record of Erzincan earthquake in 1992 that occurred near the Mikron Bridge region. The displacement and stress results were observed to be allowable level of the stone material. Moreover, linear FE model calibrations elicited a significant influence on the nonlinear FE model simulations.Keywords Ambient vibration testing · Historical arch bridge · Dynamic characteristics · Nonlinear earthquake behavior · Finite element modeling · Model calibration · Operational modal analysis 756 B. Sevim et al.
This paper describes a historical arch bridge; its analytical modelling, modal testing and finite element model (FEM) updating. For this purpose, Senyuva historical arch bridge which is built in 1696 and located in Camlihemsin, Rize, Turkey, is selected as an application. 3D FEM of the bridge is modelled using ANSYS software to obtain analytical dynamic characteristics such as natural frequencies and mode shapes. Then, operational modal analysis using ambient vibrations is performed to attain dynamic characteristics experimentally. Human walking and wind are used as natural excitation. The output-only modal parameter identification is carried out using the Peak Picking method in frequency domain and the Stochastic Subspace Identification method in time domain. After, analytically and experimentally identified dynamic characteristics compared with each other and FEM of the historical bridge is updated to minimize the differences between modal parameters by changing uncertain modelling parameters such as boundary conditions. As a result, differences between the natural frequencies are reduced from 27% to 3% and good agreement is found between analytical and experimental dynamic characteristics after FEM updating.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.