Seismic Failure of Typical Curved RC Bridges in Wenchuan Earthquake

Abstract

Reinforce concrete (RC) curved bridges suffered severe damages or even collapsed in the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake. A field survey of seismic performance of RC curved bridges was examined. Damage patterns and the probable causes of RC curved bridges including Baihua bridge and ramp bridge of Huilan interchange are presented and analyzed in this paper. The main failure was pure shear failure or shear-flexural failure of the pier columns. Bearings and expansion joints damage were another common failure pattern. Lession learned from the damage of RC curved bridges in this earthquake, the recommendations on the seismic design of RC curved bridges are presented involving ductility of bridge columns, design of curved bridges, design of bearings and devices preventing girders falling down. Suggestions for the future seismic design and retrofitting of RC curved bridges are also presented in moderate to severe earthquake area.

Seismic performance of continuous curved girder bridge with high pier in Maduo earthquake and characteristic analysis

“…In the 1999 Taiwan Chi-Chi Earthquake, the doubleamplitude three-span simply supported beam curved bridge of Shiwei Bridge had two-span drop beams in the south line and one-span drop beam on the north line, and the shear failure of the pier top of the curved section of the Maoluoxi Bridge (George and Lee, 2000). During the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake, the small-radius curved section of Baihua Bridge collapsed, the consolidated pier column at the curved ramp of Huilan Overpass was severely damaged, and the main girders of Xiaohuanggou Middle Bridge, Chengguan Expressway Overpass Bridge and Xinfang Bridge were seriously displaced (Huang, 2008;Chen et al, 2012); In the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake in Japan, the three-span continuous main girder of the Ogizaka Bridge collided with the abutment and rotated in-plane (Fujikula et al, 2019). The displacement of the curved main girder of the Okirhata Bridge resulted in the significant residual displacement of the piers (Hanafusa and Takahashi, 2018).…”