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Seismic response of skewed RC box-girder bridges
Ahmed Abdel-Mohti and Gokhan Pekcan

Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, University of Nevada Reno

Abstract: It is critical to ensure the functionality of highway bridges after earthquakes to provide access to important
facilities. Since the 1971 San Fernando earthquake, there has been a better understanding of the seismic performance of
bridges. Nonetheless, there are no detailed guidelines addressing the performance of skewed highway bridges. Several
parameters affect the response of skewed highway bridges under both service and seismic loads which makes their behavior
complex. Therefore, there is a need for more research to study the effect of skew angle and other related factors on the
performance of highway bridges. This paper examines the seismic performance of a three-span continuous concrete box
girder bridge with skew angles from 0 to 60 degrees, analytically. Finite element (FE) and simpliied beam-stick (BS) models
of the bridge were developed using SAP2000. Different types of analysis were considered on both models such as: nonlinear
static pushover, and linear and nonlinear time history analyses. A comparison was conducted between FE and BS, different
skew angles, abutment support conditions, and time history and pushover analysis. It is shown that the BS model has the
capability to capture the coupling due to skew and the signiicant modes for moderate skew angles. Boundary conditions and
pushover load proile are determined to have a major effect on pushover analysis. Pushover analysis may be used to predict
the maximum deformation and hinge formation adequately.

Keywords: skew bridge; seismic response; pushover analysis; time history analysis; modeling