Numerical Seismic Analysis of Railway Soil-Steel Bridges

TL;DR

This study uses finite element dynamic analysis to investigate the seismic behavior of railway soil-steel bridges, examining modeling approaches, material behavior, and input motion effects to inform safer design practices.

Contribution

It introduces comprehensive FEM models considering 2D and 3D effects, elastoplastic behavior, and input motion characteristics for soil-steel bridge seismic analysis.

Findings

3D internal forces are smaller than 2D forces.

Elastoplastic behavior reduces internal forces.

Higher input acceleration and soil cover increase internal forces.

Abstract

Interaction of corrugated steel plates with surrounding soil medium causes the investigation of seismic behavior of soil-steel structures to be complicated. Reviewing the available literature confirms the considerable scarceness in this area. Therefore, this paper studies the seismic behavior of soil-steel railway bridges using FEM dynamic analysis. The finite element two- and three-dimensional models are developed using ABAQUS package by considering four definite spans in time-domain. Many important issues like the effect of 2D and 3D modeling, use of elastic and elastoplastic material models and the thickness of soil cover height were investigated. Another part of the study was devoted to the investigation of the impact of input motion characteristics such as maximum acceleration amplitude and angle earthquake waves approach to the structure on internal forces and consequently the buckling of the structures. Obtained results show that steel arc internal forces in 3D condition are smaller than the 2D condition. Also, elastoplastic behavior reduces internal forces. Increase in input acceleration amplitude and soil cover height yields to increase in internal forces. No regular pattern found for variation of internal forces with respect to the impact angle of input motion.