DEAD WEIGHT COMPENSATION MECHANISM FOR IMPROVING ANTI-CATASTROPHIC PERFORMANCE OF VIADUCTS: FEASIBILITY INVESTIGATION

Abstract

 In the design standards for railway structures (revised in 2012), the concept of “Anti-catastrophe” has been introduced in order to prevent the occurrence of catastrophic states against earthquakes of an unanticipated scale. In this paper, the dead weight compensation mechanism to be applied to enhance the anti-catastrophe performance of viaducts is proposed. The anti-catastrophe performance is achieved by maintaining the vertical support performance even during an extreme earthquake event. The seismic performance and feasibility of the proposed mechanism for railway bridge structures are investigated by loading test. As a result, the structure with the proposed mechanism is confirmed to satisfy the requirement of seismic performance and no loss of vertical support performance of the structural system.