Widening of Existing Motorway Bridges: Pile Group Retrofit versus Nonlinear Pile–Soil Response
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 145, Issue 12
Abstract
Modernization of motorway infrastructure often involves widening of existing bridges which need to be retrofitted to sustain the increased loads. Whereas pier retrofit is relatively straightforward, pile group strengthening can be a challenging, costly, and time-consuming operation. Such major operation can be avoided by taking advantage of nonlinear foundation response. Within this context, the paper presents a comparative assessment of current practice, based on elastic foundation design, and of an alternative design approach that allows nonlinear foundation response. This allows for the exceedance of the conventionally defined (elastic) moment capacity of the foundation through load redistribution between piles during seismic shaking. Inspired by the widening of a Swiss bridge, a numerical study is conducted employing three-dimensional (3D) finite-element (FE) modeling. The analysis compares the widened bridge with retrofitted versus unretrofitted foundation. For moderate design-level seismic shaking, the performance is almost identical. For stronger shaking substantially exceeding the design limits, the unretrofitted foundation is advantageous because it reduces structural damage by dissipating energy through soil yielding, at the cost of increased—but totally tolerable—settlement.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code generated or used during the study are available from the corresponding author by request.
Acknowledgments
The financial support for this paper has been provided by the Swiss Federal Roads Office (FEDRO) within the project AGB2017/001 (Development of reliable methods for optimized retrofit design of bridge pile groups) and is greatly appreciated.
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Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 145 • Issue 12 • December 2019
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©2019 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jun 14, 2018
Accepted: Jun 13, 2019
Published online: Sep 24, 2019
Published in print: Dec 1, 2019
Discussion open until: Feb 24, 2020
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