A Study on the Seismic Performance of Energy-Dissipating Sacrificial Devices for Steel Plate Ginder Bridges

A new Energy-Dissipating Sacrificial Device (EDSD) is developed for steel plate girders, which can effectively dissipate the energy stored in the structures during seismic actions. To verify the performance of the EDSD, various seismic responses of a sample bridge with the EDSD are analyzed in terms of energy, member forces and deformation. The full scale model tests are conducted to certify the performance of the EDSD when it is applied on existing bridges. Using the improved hysteretic model of the sacrificial member, the seismic analysis for an example bridge is performed. The results show that the proposed EDSD under seismic excitations can significantly decrease the energy stored in the bridge structures and reduce the relative displacements of each superstructure to the ground. The EDSD is also found to function as a structural fuse under strong ground motions, sacrificing itself to absorb the excessive energy. Consequently, economical enhancement of the seismic performance of bridges can be achieved by employing the newly developed energy-dissipating sacrificial device.