Synopsis

SEISMIC EVALUATION OF SUBSTRUCTURE IRREGULARITY OF REINFORCED

CONCRETE GIRDER BRIDGE

Supervised by Submitted by
Dr. R. K. Khare Sumit Shingane
Professor, CE & AMD M.E. (Structural Engineering, IV Sem)
S.G.S.I.T.S. Indore S.G.S.I.T.S. Indore

Date:- 04 /09/2016 Time:- 12 noon

Introduction
Ideally, earthquake resistant construction should be designed to have a regular configuration so
that the behavior is simple to conceptualize and analyze, and so that inelastic energy dissipation
is promoted in a large number of readily identified yielding components. This ideal often is not
achievable in bridge construction because of irregularities imposed by site conditions and traffic
flow requirement. A common form of irregularities arises when a bridge traverses a basin
requiring columns of non uniform length. Although the response of the superstructure may be
relatively uniform, the deformation demands on the individual substructure piers are highly
irregular; the largest strains are imposed on the shortest columns.
The shorter piers are subjected to increased ductility demand, and consequently damage tends to
localize in these relatively stiffer pier. On the other hand, stiffening or strengthening of the high
demand piers typically leads to the opposite result, attraction of higher forces. Compared to
solid piers, hollow piers have the advantage of having significant reduction in the volume of the
material, large reduction of dead load, and high bending and torsional stiffness.

Aim and Objective

Objective is to evaluate seismic behaviour of substructure irregularity of Reinforced Concrete
girder bridge with solid and hollow pier sections. Nonlinear static pushover analysis has been
performed for different cases of substructure irregularity and determine base shear capacity and
displacement capacity of piers. Incremental Dynamic analysis (IDA) has been performed for
different cases of substructure irregularity and prepare fragility curves for all the cases of
substructure irregularity. Also compare the result of seismic analysis of both solid and hollow
pier sections.
Problem Formulation

To study the effect of substructure irregularity of 3 span I girder reinforced concrete bridge,
different Aspect ratio of pier height has been considered. Length of bridge is 48m (3 spans of
16m each) ,width of bridge 8.4m, depth of deck slab 0.41m, cap beam 8m long, 1.5m wide & 2m
deep and 1.5mx3m pier size. Solid rectangular and double hollow shell rectangular Pier section
has been considered. Five cases of substructure irregularity of aspect ratio 0.5, 0.64, 0.75, 0.85
& 1 for each pier section has been considered.

Methodology Adopted
Modeling and Nonlinear Pushover Analysis have been performed on different cases of RC
Bridge using CSiBridge 2016 software. Nonlinear Incremental Dynamic Analysis (IDA) has
performed using nonlin software. Fragility analysis has been performed and Fragility curves
have been prepared for different cases of RC Bridge.

Conclusions
* On performing push over analysis, it is found that substructure irregularity of bridges
affect the seismic performance of the bridge structure and the Vernability of the structure
due to base shear goes on increasing as increasing the substructure irregularity for both
solid and hollow pier section.

* On increasing the substructure irregularity, Displacement capacity of bridge structure

goes on decreasing for both solid and hollow pier section.

* On performing fragility analysis, it is found that the seismic performance goes on

decreasing as increasing the substructure irregularity for both solid and hollow pier
sections.

* Hollow pier sections are less fragile than the solid pier sections with respect to
substructure irregularity.

* Finally concluded that, it is necessary to pay attention toward the substructure irregularity
in seismic analysis and design philosophies of the reinforced concrete girder bridges.

* It is also concluded that the performance of hollow pier sections are more better than the
solid pier section in case of substructure irregularity.