ANALYTICAL STUDY ON A PROPOSAL OF SEISMIC DESIGN METHOD FOR STEPPED STEEL BRIDGE PIERS WITH PIPE SECTIONS

Abstract

 In this study, cyclic analyses of variable pipe cross-section steel piers are conducted aiming to propose an earthquake resistant design method. If buckling occurs at pier base, steel piers with variable pipe sections have almost the same the seismic performance as those with uniform pipe sections. Based on analytical results by employing a modified two-surface model, a conditional expression for avoiding buckling in the part of variable sections is derived. The analytical results show that the steel piers of variable pipe sections as good as that of uniform pipe sections can be designed easily by using the proposed design method.