Field validated modelling of horizontally curved bridge

With development of communication infrastructure in cities, the use of bridges is increasing day by day due to existence of non-level intersections. Limitation of urban spaces has caused a significant part of these bridges to have a horizontally curved deck so that they can connect different routes in a low space. Therefore, recognizing the seismic behavior of these bridges is of great importance. The past earthquakes, such as 1994 Northridge and 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, also showed that these types of bridges are highly vulnerable under earthquakes and especially under near-fault earthquakes. Horizontally curved deck causes geometric irregularities, as a result, the seismic behavior of these bridges is complicated under earthquake. Analysis of these bridges is time consuming and costly using a finite element method. In recent years, many studies have been done on modeling of irregular bridges to obtain more precise results from the seismic response of bridges and also reduce analysis time. In this study, a horizontally curved bridge was modeled using a spine-line model and then verified by field-test and experimental results. The validation results showed that by using simple models such as the spine-line model for deck modeling, and taking into account the dimension effect in the connections and the pinching effect in the base of columns, can produce a real model of irregular bridges, such as horizontally curved bridges. The reason for this is the elimination of numerical analysis errors.