Parametric Pushover Analysis on Elevated RC Pile-Cap Foundations for Bridges in Cohesionless Soils
Publication: Journal of Bridge Engineering
Volume 24, Issue 1
Abstract
For bridges under seismic excitations, current design practices recommend to comply with the capacity protection principle for pile foundations. However, in cases, such as elevated (or scoured) RC pile-cap foundation typologies that are partially embedded, the piles may suffer large deflections under lateral loads, which make it difficult for them to remain in the elastic state. In this regard, the present study makes an in-depth analysis on the ductile behavior of elevated RC pile-cap foundations to explore potentials for seismic ductile design. A beam-on-nonlinear-Winkler-foundation model with or without the consideration of bond-slip effect at pile head/cap connections is built in accordance with quasi-static testing of a 2 × 3 elevated RC pile-cap foundation, and validated in various aspects, including the global force-displacement relationship, the failure mechanism, and the location of plastic hinges. The validation results indicate that the bond-slip effect is generally unremarkable and can be neglected for the modeling of studied elevated pile-cap foundations (EPFs). Two limit states and the corresponding ductility factors, named easy-to-repair and ultimate displacement ductility factors, are proposed for EPFs. Parametric pushover analyses are then performed to investigate the impact of structural and geotechnical parameters on the ductile behavior of real-scale 2 × 3 elevated RC pile-cap foundations embedded in homogeneous and multilayered cohesionless soils. The numerical results show considerable ductile capacities (with an average quantified as 2.77 and 4.05 for the easy-to-repair and ultimate displacement ductility factors, respectively) for elevated RC pile-cap foundations. Additionally, a mathematical relationship between displacement and curvature ductility factors is established for future ductility-based design practices.
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Acknowledgments
Funding for this study is partially provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 51778469) and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (Grant SLDRCE 15-B-05). Special thanks to Laura Centellas, Tengfei Liu, and the MC2 Design Company for providing comments that improved the manuscript. The authors are also very grateful to three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on the original version of this paper. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect those of the sponsoring organizations.
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Published In
Journal of Bridge Engineering
Volume 24 • Issue 1 • January 2019
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© 2018 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 6, 2017
Accepted: Jul 12, 2018
Published online: Nov 1, 2018
Published in print: Jan 1, 2019
Discussion open until: Apr 1, 2019
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