Lateral Capacity Model for Backfills Reacting against Skew-Angled Abutments under Seismic Loading
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 146, Issue 2
Abstract
Presence of skew-angled abutments complicates the seismic behavior of ordinary bridges, primary effect of which is the passive lateral resistance of the engineered backfill behind the abutment. The eccentricity of the soil reaction relative to the bridge’s center of stiffness or mass causes a skew bridge to rotate under seismic excitations, and a nonuniform soil pressure distribution develops behind the abutment backwall. A distributed nonlinear spring model is devised to represent the lateral passive reaction of the backfill soil. The behavior of these springs is based on a model that was previously developed and experimentally validated for straight abutments, dubbed the log-spiral hyperbolic (LSH) model, which is modified herein by a scaling factor that is based on the skew angle. This new modeling approach is verified against three-dimensional finite element model simulations and is validated with data from five prior large-scale experiments that produced direct measurements of load-deformation backbone curves for several skew angles. In the final step, the validated modified [i.e., skew-LSH (SLSH)] model is used in parametric studies to devise a simple bilinear load-deformation relationship that is parameterized with respect to backwall height, abutment skew angle, and backfill soil properties. This simple relationship is intended for routine use in the capacity-based seismic design and analysis of skew bridges.
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Acknowledgments
This study was funded in part by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) under Contract No. 59A0247 (and amendments thereto), and by Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research (PEER) Transportation Research Program under Grant No. UCLA-45782. This financial support is gratefully acknowledged. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of sponsors.
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Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 146 • Issue 2 • February 2020
Copyright
©2019 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 23, 2018
Accepted: Aug 7, 2019
Published online: Nov 30, 2019
Published in print: Feb 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Apr 30, 2020
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