Effect of Structure-Soil-Structure Interaction (SSSI) between Three Dissimilar Adjacent Bridges

Abstract

The present study assesses the effect of Structure-Soil-Structure-Interaction (SSSI) on the seismic behavior of three dissimilar adjacent bridges by comparing their seismic responses with the seismic response of the isolated bridge including Soil-Structure-Interaction (SSI). To this end, an extensive series of numerical analyses have been carried out to elicit the effects of Structure-Soil-Structure-Interaction (SSSI) on the seismic behavior of three dissimilar bridges with different superstructure masses. The studied bridges are based on groups of piles founded in nonlinear clay. A parametric study has been performed for configurations of three dissimilar bridges with superstructure masses ratios of 200% and 300%, concentrating on the influence of the inter-bridge spacing, and the geometrical position of the bridges towards each other and towards the seismic excitation direction. The numerical analyses have been conducted using a three-dimensional finite difference modeling software FLAC 3D (Fast Lagrangian analysis of continua in 3 dimensions). The results of the numerical simulations clearly show that the seismic responses of the dissimilar grouped bridges were strongly influenced by the neighboring bridges. In particular, the results reveal a salient positive impact on the acceleration of the superstructure by a considerable drop (up to 90.63%) and by (up to 91.27%) for the internal forces induced in the piles. Comparably, the influence of bridge arrangement towards the seismic loading were prominent on both of superstructure acceleration and the internal forces in the piles. The responses were as much as 27 times lesser for the acceleration and 11 times smaller for the internal forces than the response of the isolated bridge. Contrarily, the inter-bridge spacing has a limited effect on the seismic response of the grouped bridges.