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Girder Load Distribution For Seismic Design Of Integral Bridges, Justin Vander Werff, Sri Sritharan

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Current seismic design practice related to integral bridge girder-to-cap beam connections allows little or no lateral seismic load to be distributed beyond the girders immediately adjacent to the column. However, distribution results from several large-scale tests have shown that the distribution of column seismic moment typically engages all the girders. An approach utilizing simple stiffness models to predict distribution in integral bridge structures is presented in detail; distribution predictions based on grillage analyses also are compared. The experimental results and the analytical results from the stiffness and grillage models show that current design methods related to vertical load distribution are …