Elastic response of integral bridge under Malaysian low intensity earthquake

This paper presents a performance-based seismic analysis of increasingly preferred short span bridge in Malaysia: integral bridge (IB). In the case of the integral bridge the pier and deck were monolithic so the thermal contraction and expansion of the deck is allowed for by the flexibility in the pier and abutments. The bridge was analyzed with low intensity bidirectional earthquake excitation with assessment of the structural responses of the bridge. The elastic response spectrum derived from Eurocode 8 (EN 1998) was used in Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software SAP2000 for the bridge analysis and simulation. The bridge was then being performed again with the same analysis with an inclusion of link component represented seismic rubber isolator. The analysis showed that even though the displacements were reduced for the integral bridge, the acceleration, and structural responses were higher than for the bridge with seismic rubber isolator.