Seismic response of a continuous bridge with bearing protection devices

Unseating of bridges during earthquakes results from the failure of bearings and insufficient seat length. In case of elastomeric bearings, large deformations of the superstructure occur, under severe earthquake ground motions and additional protection measures are necessary. The combination of a displacement restraining device with the elastomeric bearing can prevent bearing failure. This paper evaluates the performance of four different types of protection devices to limit the displacement of the superstructure during earthquakes: (1) rigid stopper device, (2) yielding stopper device, (3) steel restrainer, and (4) superelastic shape memory alloy (SMA) restrainer. Analytical models for all the protection devices have been developed and seismic response of an existing bridge with elastomeric bearings and different protection devices has been evaluated for five strong ground motion records scaled in the frequency domain. The results show that all the protection devices have comparable performance in preventing the failure of bearing during an earthquake.