Effect of Cohesive Contact of Backfill with Arch and Spandrel Walls of a Historical Masonry Arch Bridge on Seismic Response

Abstract

Historical masonry bridges generally consist of arches, spandrels walls, backfills, piers and foundations. Under the effects such as earthquake, flood and wind, the most vulnerable structural elements of bridges against out-of-plane seismic motions are spandrel walls. Increasing length and height of spandrel walls increases the vulnerability of the bridge under loads in vertical and transverse directions. The aim of this research is to examine the in-plane and out-of-plane non-linear structural responses of the spandrel walls of a historical masonry bridge. For this purpose, a historical masonry arch bridge with built in 1787 in Bartın-Turkey was chosen as the subject structure. The 3D finite element model and nonlinear seismic analyses of the bridge were performed with ABAQUS. Initially, the backfill-spandrels and backfill-arch interfaces of the bridge were modeled with and without cohesive contact. The non-linear material responses of the spandrel walls and the arch units were defined using Concrete Damage Plasticity material model and those of the backfill unit were defined with Mohr-Coulomb material model. The east-west component of 17 August 1999 Kocaeli Earthquake’s acceleration records was used in the analyses. The east-west acceleration component was applied on the bridge in-plane and out-of-plane directions during the time-history non-linear seismic analysis of the bridge. The results obtained from the analyses with and without the consideration of cohesive contact were compared to evaluate the seismic responses of the spandrel walls. As a result, cohesive interface behavior was found to significantly affect the spandrel wall response under in- plane and out-of-plane seismic forces.

Seismic Response of a Historical Masonry Bridge under Near and Far-fault Ground Motions

“…According to the literature, macro-modeling approach is more useful for large scale structure models because of low computational effort [20][21][22]. This approach was used in many studies [23][24][25][26][27].…”

Linear/Nonlinear Dynamic Analysis and Prediction of Failure Mechanism of Irgandi Bridge

“…Linear or nonlinear dynamic analysis are performed to establish more realistic seismic behavior of the bridges by creating numerical models [6][7][8][9][10]. In order to examine the earthquake performance of the bridges, dynamic behavior is determined by using different calibration methods in many studies and numerical models are calibrated according to this behavior [11][12][13][14].…”

Evaluation of the Seismic Behavior of the Historic Clandras Bridge

“…From the various analyses one can conclude that the probable ground subsidence at one or more pier supports and the seismic excitation stress the bridge considerably creating damage at critical areas. Hökelekli and Yilmaz [11] investigated the in-plane and out-of-plane non-linear structural responses of the walls of a historical stone arch bridge built in 1787 in Bartın, Turkey. As a result of the analysis, cohesive interface behavior was found to significantly affect the spandrel wall response under in-plane and out-of-plane seismic forces.…”