Centrifuge Modeling of Bridge Systems Designed for Rocking Foundations
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 138, Issue 3
Abstract
In good soil conditions, spread footings for bridges are less expensive than deep foundations. Furthermore, rocking shallow foundations have some performance advantages over conventional fixed-base foundations; they can absorb some of the ductility demand that would typically be absorbed by the columns, and they have better recentering characteristics than conventional reinforced-concrete (RC) columns. Foundations designed for elastic behavior do not have these benefits of nonlinear soil-structure interaction. One potential disadvantage of rocking systems is that they can produce significant settlement in poor soil conditions. Centrifuge model tests were performed to account for the interaction between soil, footing, column, deck and abutments systems. Bridge systems with rocking foundations on good soil conditions are shown to perform well and settlements are small. An improved method for quantification of settlements is presented. The model tests are described in some detail. One of the important factors limiting the use of rocking foundations is the perception that they might tip over; experiments show that tipping instability is unlikely if the foundations are properly sized. In one experiment, a column for a system with large fixed-base foundation collapsed while the systems with smaller rocking foundations did not collapse.
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Acknowledgments
The project was funded primarily by the California Department of Transportation (M. DeSalvatore, S. McBride, T. Shantz, M. Khojasteh, and M. Mahan) under contract number UNSPECIFIED59A0575. The National Science Foundation George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) under Award Number NSFCMMI-0402490 provided funding for use of the centrifuge at UC Davis. The authors appreciate the staff of the Center for Centrifuge Modeling of UC Davis (C. Justice, R. Gerhard, A. Ganchenko, P. Rojas, and J. Chen) and other collaborators (Professor S. Gajan of North Dakota State Univ., T. Algie of the Univ. of Auckland, New Zealand, M. Hakhamaneshi and J. Allmond of UC Davis, and Dr. E. Erduran of NORSAR, Norway).
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 138 • Issue 3 • March 2012
Pages: 335 - 344
Copyright
© 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 18, 2010
Accepted: Jul 21, 2011
Published online: Jul 25, 2011
Published in print: Mar 1, 2012
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