EACS 2012 – 5th European Conference on Structural Control Genoa, Italy – 18-20 June 2012

Paper No. # 074

Behaviour of a Steel Bridge Equipped with Seismic Isolation Devices

Ionuţ Radu RĂCĂNEL 1*, Dan-Ilie CREŢU 2

Technical University of Civil Engineering, Department of Strength of Materials, Bridges and Tunnels
122-124 Lacul Tei Bvd., Bucharest, 020396, Romania
ionut_racanel@yahoo.com, cretud@utcb.ro

Costin Stelian MUTU 3

S.C. I.P.T.A.N.A. S.A., Department of Structures Computation
36-38 Dinicu Golescu Bvd., Bucharest, 010873, Romania
costinmutu@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT

Bridges are structures subjected to several types of external loads during their service life. One of
these external actions which has a high order of uncertainty is the seismic action. Earthquakes are one the
most severe natural actions which can occur during the service life of a structure. For this reason, in the last
decade, all the countries placed in active seismic regions have produced specific standards and provisions
having the aim to design safer structures.
Romanian territory includes several seismic faults covering a major part of the country, the seismic
action being considered in the design stage for a new structure.
In the past, generally, the desired safety factor for a bridge structure considering the seismic action
was reached by increasing the dimensions of the structural elements.
By introducing the use of passive control devices and isolating the base of buildings a new era began
also in the field of bridges. Using special bearing devices as lead rubber bearings (LRB), high damping
rubber bearing (HDRB), dampers or friction pendulum isolators (FPS) or combinations of these, the
behavior of the bridge under seismic loads can be significantly improved. Thus, really benefits regarding the
cost of the whole structure can be obtained.
In this paper, the behavior of a new steel bridge with passive control devices is investigated. The
bridge has some special characteristics: large spans (200m), tall piers with height between 30 and 70m and
bad soil conditions for the substructure elements. In the same time, the site is characterized by a high value
of the ground acceleration (ks=0.32g). Several types of passive control devices are used, finally a comparison
between their influences of the bridge response being presented.

Keywords: bridge, earthquake, seismic action, lead rubber bearings, friction isolators, stresses.

1 INTRODUCTION

The seismic action is one of the most severe which can occur during the lifetime of a structure
and can produce damages, in the worst situations leading even to the collapse of the structures.
Bridges are complex structures which are supporting roads or railways being also exposed to the
effects of the earthquakes. The level of redundancy of a bridge is many times lower than in the case
of buildings because of their geometry (mainly constructed in one direction) and their structure. The
bridge substructure consisting in piers and abutments is organized, almost in all cases, with the
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*
Corresponding author
structural elements in a row, so that the effects of a severe damage on one element affect
immediately all other elements. Last recent seismic events occurred all around the world shown
what could happen if the seismic action is not or is wrong considered in the estimation of the
structural behaviour.
Because of the uncertainty of seismic action in terms of intensity, duration, place of
occurrence and mode of action it is very difficult to establish the best method to be use in order to
protect a structure and limit the effects of an earthquake. In the past, the concept of increasing
stiffness of the structural elements was first adopted in the design. According to this, the resistance
capacity of the structure was increased and as a consequence, the dynamic response was kept in the
domain with high frequencies and high response acceleration values. Supplementary, the structural
elements are forced to take high levels of loads which can lead to damages on their cross sections.
In the last decade the performance based design, which accounts the needs of a structure in
terms of displacements for, became an adopted solution in the design and induced the fact that
structural flexibility can be an alternative to the structural stiffness to improve the dynamic
response. The correct estimation of the needs of a structure, in terms of displacements, for a certain
level of the seismic action can lead to significant reduction of costs by limiting the seismic action
effects and keeping the structure further on in service.
The use of innovative theoretical methods in structural response estimation, together with the
introduction of passive control devices have shown that a real improvement in the structural
behaviour can be achieved. The isolation devices were used first in the case of buildings to isolate
the base and limit the values of accelerations induced by the ground motion. The solution was later
implemented also for bridges and by placing such kind of devices between super and substructure, a
certain level of decoupling of these to parts of bridge can be obtained. As a result, an improvement
of the behaviour in terms of reducing the internal forces and limit the displacements can be
observed.
The study presented in this paper shows the benefits of using passive devices (Seismic
Isolators and Tune Mass Dampers) to control and improve the dynamic response of a steel bridge
subjected to seismic action. A well arrangement between the level of displacements and internal
forces induced in a structure can have favourable effects both, from structural safety and
economical point of view.

2 DESCRIPTION OF THE ANALYZED BRIDGE STRUCTURE

The bridge analyzed in this paper will be erected on the national road DN 2D near the city of
Focşani. Because of the rough ground on the site and also because of the high level of the ground
acceleration (0.32g) the adopted solution had some special characteristics. In order to reduce the
inertial effects induced by the seismic action, a light superstructure and tall piers were adopted. For
the lateral spans, the superstructure is a composite one, in concrete and steel and for the main spans,
in the central part of the viaduct, a complete steel superstructure was designed. This part of the
bridge was chosen for the analyses in this paper.
The total length of the bridge is 1442 m in the following succession of spans:
370+160+200+160+370+370+470m. In figure 1 an elevation of the bridge main part
including the major spans is shown. Because of the large values of the spans an orthotropic deck
solution was designed for the superstructure. The steel box has a variable height in the range 4.00-
7.50 m and the distance between the vertical webs is 7.00m. The steel plates at the bottom and top
part of the box as well the webs are stiffened using open ribs with flanges. Each 5.50 meters, the
webs are connected in transverse direction through cross girders placed at the bottom as well at the
top of the box, but also through vertical bracings. The thickness of steel sheets forming the box
varies between 12 and 20 mm. The bridge superstructure sustains a roadway with three lanes (two
upgrade and one downgrade) each 3.50 m width, two shoulders of 0.40 m and two footways of 1.50
m each side of the road. It results a total width of 14.30 m of the superstructure at the top part. The
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cross sections through the steel box of the superstructure on the bearing (cross section A-A) and in
the midspan (cross section B-B) are presented in figure 2.

Figure 1 – General layout of the main part of the viaduct.

Figure 2 – Cross section through the bridge superstructure.

The bridge substructure consists in 2 abutments and 15 piers having deep foundations on piles
with the diameter of 1.50 m and a length of 30.00 m. Because of their height, the piers elevation has
special box shape with a depth of 4.50 m in bridge longitudinal direction and a width of 7.00 m and
a variable height between 39.00 m and 55.00 m. The cross section of the piers differs on the length:
20.00 m above the piles cap a single reinforced concrete box was designed and on the remaining
height this was replaced by two separate boxes also in reinforced concrete (Fig.3). This solution
was chosen in order to increase the piers flexibility regarding the effects of the seismic action.
The length of the piles which are forming the bridge foundations is justified by the high
values the piers height, but also by the presence of several soil layers with bad geotechnical
characteristics.
The connection between super- and substructure is made through neoprene bearing devices
which were installed below the webs of the steel box. The piers shape allows to place on each pier
four bearings, this approach offering advantages regarding the dimensions of the bearing devices.

Figure 3 – Cross section through piers elevations.

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3 DISCRETE MODELS USED FOR THE ANALYSES

In order to obtain the bridge response following the seismic action, several three dimensional
simple finite element models were considered. The difference between these models consists in the
modelling, characteristics and behaviour of the bearings used to support the bridge superstructure
on the substructure elements. A 3D view of one of the finite element models is presented in figure 4
bellow.

Figure 4 – 3D view a finite element model.

The bridge steel box orthotropic deck was modelled using straight frame elements with two
joints. These elements concentrate the geometrical characteristics for the whole deck cross section.
In order to respect the position of the deck neutral axis with respect to the piers supporting saddles,
but also to the bearings, rigid connections (rigid link elements) were used in horizontal and vertical
direction respectively, as can be seen in figure 5. For the modelling of the bearing devices, link
elements with linear or nonlinear behaviour were introduced in the models to obtain the desired
response of the structure. The standard elastomeric bearings have into the model linear elastic
characteristics and the LRB’s (Lead Rubber Bearings) together with FPS’s (Friction Pendulum)
isolators have nonlinear characteristics according to a bilinear response curve, as will be shown
later in this paper. The TMD’s (Tune Mass Dampers) attached to the piers top part were modelled
using a viscous damper and a linear spring element which are acting in parallel. In figure 5 the two
nodes straight frame elements modelling the piers elevation can is shown.

Figure 5 – Modelling of the connection between bridge super- and substructure.

The soil-structure interaction was considered in the finite element models through six linear
springs (three for translation and three for rotation degrees of freedom of the foundation system)
placed at the bottom of the pile elevation. Their stiffness is equivalent to the stiffness of the pile
group for translation and rotation respectively. The equivalence was made assuming that along each
pile of the group are distributed, two orthogonal in horizontal plane linear springs and one spring in
vertical direction. The springs characteristics were computed according to the soil parameters

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obtained from boreholes on the site. All dynamic analyses were performed using these finite
element models in order to investigate the bridge responses under seismic loads.

4 PERFORMED ANALYSES AND RESULTS

In order to calibrate the models for the dynamic response, linear eigenvector analyses
followed by response spectrum and linear time-history analyses were performed on the bridge with
standard elastomeric bearing devices. The resulted maximum values for the internal forces (bending
moments and shear forces) on the piers as well the nodal displacements at superstructure level were
compared. The used design response spectrum according to the Romanian norm P100-2006 is
presented in figure 6 and it describes the seismic input for the bridge location characterized by a
corner period Tc=1 s and a horizontal design acceleration amax=4.3 m/s2. According to the piers
height and cross section geometry and stiffness, a behaviour factor q=2 was considered. For the
linear time-history analysis a number of five artificial accelerograms based on the previously
presented response spectrum were generated. The average response spectrum according to the
generated accelerograms was plotted in figure 6 together with the design response spectrum. In
figure 7 the corresponding displacements response spectra are plotted.

Figure 6 – Inelastic accelerations response spectra Figure 7 – Displacements response spectra

The fundamental period of the structure is T1=2.56 s and the dynamic response of the
structure is in the range of medium accelerations with large displacements. In Table 1 are presented
for comparison the values of the bending moments, shear forces at the base of the tallest pier P5 and
the values of the horizontal displacement at the superstructure level. Only the first generated
accelerogram was used at this stage in the time-history analysis.

Table 1 – Bending moments, shear forces and displacements.

Analysis type Bending moments M, [kNm] Shear forces V, [kN] Displacements d, [m]
Response spectrum 201539 4677 0.31
Linear time-history 190477 4878 0.31
[%] Differences -5.5 +4.1 0

According to the values presented in table above it can be concluded that the internal forces
on the cross section of the pier P5 are high, leading to high values of reinforcement percentage.
Concerning the displacement value it is over the usual limits (0.20...0.25m) that allow the use of
common expansion joint devices. Thus, the goal of the study is first to decrease the values of the
superstructure displacement at maximum 0.25m and second to adjust the values of the internal
forces on the piers cross section. The tallest pier P5 will be monitored for this purpose.
Improvement of the bridge behaviour under seismic loads claims the use of special bearing
devices. In this study two types of isolators are used separately: lead rubber bearings (LRB) and
friction pendulum systems (FPS). Finally, another approach based on the use of TMD’s (Tune Mass
Dampers) placed inside the piers cross section is also accounted for. Considering the values of the
internal forces on pier P5 cross section and of the superstructure displacement following nonlinear
time-history analyses a comparison is made in order to establish the most effective solution to
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obtain the desired response of the structure. The study is made considering all five artificially
generated accelerograms matching with the acceleration response spectrum presented in figure 6.
The LRB’s and FPS’s were placed at the top of all piers of the bridge. Both isolation systems
were modelled into the structural analysis program using nonlinear “link” finite elements. For the
LRB’s the rubber isolator element was chosen and for the FPS’s the plastic Wen element was
selected. For both isolation devices the force-displacement relationship was described using a
bilinear curve. In figure 8, the theoretical function used to describe the nonlinear behaviour of the
isolators is shown. Figure 9 represents the schemes of LRB and FPS bearings used into the
analyses.

Figure 8 – The theoretical function used for Figure 9 – Schemes of seismic isolators
the isolators

In figure 8 Fmax, Dmax are the maximum force and the maximum displacement of the isolator,
Fy, Dy are the yielding force and the yielding displacement, K1 is the initial stiffness, K2 is the post
yield stiffness and Keff is the effective stiffness.
The fundamental period of the structure is outside of the amplification domain of the response
spectrum. Starting from this value, the characteristics of the used isolators can be established. For
the LRB isolators the following equations were used to find the basic characteristics:
m
T = 2p (0)
k str
1 k PIERS �k str
keff = (2)
n k PIERS - k str
where T is the fundamental period of the structure, m is the modal mass, keff is the effective
stiffness of one isolator, kPIERS is the bending stiffness of the piers and kstr is the overall stiffness of
the bridge structure. Based on this value of keff from the Algasism catalogue [4] the LRN D700
B750 Z550 was chosen, with =4% and G=0.9 MPa. The effective damping eff for this type of
isolator is 30% and the maximum displacement is 140 mm. In this case, K 1 is the lead core and K2
is the elastomer contribution respectively.
For the friction pendulum system the equations used are as follows:
R
T = 2p (3)
g
�V�
F = uV + � �D (4)
�R �

F 2� u �
keff = ;  eff = � (5)
D p�u + D/R�
�
uV V
K1 = ; K2 = (6)
Dy R
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 where R is the radius of the sliding surface; g is the gravity constant; F is the horizontal force
taken by the friction pendulum system; u represents the dynamic friction constant in the range 3%-
12% according to [5]; V is the total vertical load on an isolator; D is the isolator displacement. For
this case study the period of the isolator was chosen smaller (T=2.15 s) than the structure
fundamental period in order to take into account also the piers contribution to the general
displacement of the bridge. The resulted value for the radius of the sliding surface was R=1.15 m.
Based on these equations and following nonlinear time history analyses using all five
artificially generated accelerograms, the complete dynamic response of the bridge was obtained. In
figures 10 and 11 the force-deformation plots are presented both for a LRB and a FPS on pier P4
using as input the first accelerogram.

Figure 10 – Force-displacement plot for a LRB Figure 11 – Force-displacement plot for a FPS
As an alternative to the LRB and FPS isolators, in this study also the influence of TMD
(Tune Mass Damper) on the dynamic response of the bridge was investigated. This device is a
vibration absorber attached to the primary oscillating system, in this case the bridge structure. In
general it consists in a mass which is connected to the primary system through an oscillating system
formed by a spring and a viscous damper acting in parallel. The accurate tuning of the frequency of
the TMD with the frequency of the structure lead to introduction into the primary system of inertial
forces, which will counterbalance it’s movements, the result being a reduction of displacements and
internal forces of the primary system. While the displacements of the TMD are large, those of the
primary system will be reduced.
In this paper, the use of TMD is proposed because in some cases, the resistance capacity of
the bearings does not allow to take large values of vertical reactions produced by static or dynamic
actions. Two TMD’s were placed only on the two central piers, P4 and P5 respectively.
The modeling of the TMD in performed numerical analyses is presented in figure 12. They
were placed at the top of piers P4 and P5 and consist in two systems viscous damper-elastic spring,
which are connected through rigid elements. The mass is disposed in the middle as presented in
figure 12.

Figure 12 – Scheme of the TMD used in the analyses

According to [5] the optimum frequency of the TMD should be in the range 95-99% of the
frequency of the primary system. Knowing the fundamental frequency of the bridge fs and the value
of the modal mass ms, the mass mt, the spring stiffness kt and the damping constant ct of the TMD
can be established using the equations bellow:

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 fs
ft =
m (7)
1+ t
ms
1 kt 1 ks
ft = ; fs = (8)
2p mt 2p ms

mt
3
ms
opt = 3 (9)
� mt �
1+ �
8�
� ms �

wt = 2p f t ; ct = 2mtwtopt (10)

where ft, wt and opt are the frequency, the circular frequency and the optimum damping ratio
of the TMD. Using these equations the characteristics of the absorber were determined and inputted
into the nonlinear time-history analyses. The ground motion was simulated using the five artificially
generated accelerograms. Finally, the results obtained using accelerogram four, which lead to the
largest values of horizontal displacement of the superstructure, were selected for comparison for all
type of analyzed isolation devices and are summarized in the table 2 and in figure 13 bellow.

Table 2 – Horizontal displacements of the superstructure in meters

Structure with Structure with Structure with Structure with
Input ground motion
neoprene bearings LRB’s FPS’s TMD’s
Generated accelerogram
number four
0.35 0.19 0.18 0.23
Differences in % with respect to
the values obtained on the - -46 -49 -35
structure with neoprene bearings

Figure 13 – Time histories of the horizontal displacement of the superstructure

Figures 14 and 15 show a comparison in terms of internal forces on the piers P5 cross section
computed at the base of the pier. These are absolute maximum or minimum values obtained from
the envelope of the internal forces, resulted following the nonlinear time-history analyses performed
for each of five accelerograms. The values in the figures 14 and 15 were obtained for the
accelerogram four, who leads to the maximum displacements of the bridge superstructure.

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 Figure 14 – Bending moments (base of pier P5) Figure 15 – Shear forces (base of pier P5)

During the motion induced by the seismic action, the mass attached to the TMD exhibits large
displacements which reduce significantly the overall displacements of the structure. Figure 16
shows time-history responses in terms of displacements for the mass of the TMD, for a point
situated at the top of the pier elevation and for a point on the bridge superstructure.

Figure 16 – Displacements of the TMD mass, pier and superstructure

5 CONCLUSION

In this paper the behaviour under the seismic action of a steel bridge with standard bearings,
but also with special isolation devices, was investigated. For this purpose, several finite element
models were built and analyzed using linear response spectrum, linear and nonlinear time-history
analyses. The ground motion was simulated using a design response spectrum function foreseen in
the Romanian norm P100-2006 for the site where the bridge is placed, but also five artificially
generated accelerograms matched to comply with this response spectrum function. All analyses
were performed on the structure with standard elastomeric bearings (neoprene), but also on the
structure equipped on all piers with lead rubber bearings (LRB) or with friction isolators (FPS) and
with tune mass dampers only on the central piers P4 and P5.
Because the fundamental period of the structure is outside the amplification domain of the
response spectrum, the goal of the study is to establish the appropriate isolation device to be used in
order to keep the superstructure displacement bellow 0.25 m. Thus, the use of common expansion
joint devices is possible.
The structure with standard elastomeric bearings exhibits large displacements at the
superstructure level (0.35 m for accelerogram four) and also large internal forces at the base of the
piers. This because of the impossibility of the bearings to dissipate energy. By introducing the
isolation devices a significant improvement in the bridge behaviour can be achieved. Thus, the
superstructure displacements and the bending moments at the base of the piers can be reduced with
almost 50% using FPS’s. The reduction in terms of shear force is only around 18% in the case of
using LRB’s. Globally, the FPS’s seems to offer the best solution to improve the dynamic response
of the bridge structure. Supplementary, the capacity of the FPS’s system to restore the structure near
to undeformed position recommends them for the future use to solve this kind of problems.

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 Regarding the use of TMD’s it can be concluded that their efficiency in terms of reducing
displacements and stresses is smaller compared to other two used devices. The tuning of a TMD is
very complex because of the large composition in frequency of the induced ground motion. To
obtain a better behaviour, the TMD should be tuned for each range of significant frequency
contained in recorded ground motion for real earthquakes. In this paper, the tuning of the TMD was
made to fit on all five artificially generated accelerograms. Even though, it can be observed that the
reduction with respect to the structure with standard elastomeric devices is, for displacements of
35%, for bending moments of 19% and for shear forces of 10%. Of course a problem can be the
installation of such devices on bridges because their weight and dimensions.

REFEERENCES

[1] Naeim, F. and Kelly, J.M. 1999: Design of Sesimic Isolated structures: from theory to practice,
John Wiley&Sons, Inc., N.Y.

[2] Chopra, A.K. 2007:Dynamics of Structures. Theory and Applications to Earthquake

Engineering, Pearson Prentice Hall International.

[3] Zekioglu, A., Darama, H. and Erkus, B. 2009:Performance-Based seismic design of a large
seismically isolated structure: Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen Intrenational Airport Terminal Building.
SEAOC 2009 Convention Proceedings ,409-427.

[4] ALGA S.P.A. 2008: Algasism. High Damping Rubber Bearings. Lead Rubber Bearings

[5] EPS, Inc. 2003: Technical characteristics of friction pendulum bearings, Vallejo, California,
USA

[6] Bachmann, H. Et al. 1995: Vibration problems in structures: practical guidelines, Birkhäuser,
Berlin

[7] Soong, T.T and Dargush, G.F. 1997: Passive Energy Dissipation Systems in Structural
Engineering, John Willey&Sons

[8] ***P100-2006 2006: Romanian Seismic Design Code-Part I: Design Provision for Buildings

[9] *** SR-EN 1998-2. 2006: Design of structures for earthquake resistance. Part 2: Bridges

[10] Computers and Structures Incorporated 2010: CSI Analysis Reference Manual for SAP2000,
Etabs and Safe, Berkeley, California, USA.

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