Effects of abutment's bearing distribution on seismic response of continuous bridges

A abutment's bearing distribution was advanced to avoid abutment's earthquake effects, which united the two-way sliding bearing, the elastic-plastic fender and the tension-compression link to work. Taking two continuous bridges as an example, the abutment's bearing distribution was analyzed compared with the traditional abutment's bearing distribution, which could reflect the fender's yielding force and the abutment restriction stiffness' influence on the bridges' lateral seismic response. Results show that as for the traditional abutment's bearing distribution, the abutment's earthquake force would increase along with the earthquake's increment. Therefore, the abutment would have the risk of damage in the earthquake. As for the new abutment's bearing distribution, the fender's lateral yielding force can be adjusted to control the abutment's earthquake force, therefore, the abutment not only shares a part of superstructure's earthquake inertia force, but also avoids itself earthquake damage. As for the seismic design of continuous bridge, based on the bridge structure and the earthquake input, the fender's reasonable yielding force can be selected to make the whole structure's seismic response best.