Seismic analysis of bridges based on stress-dependent damping

Damping value has considerable influence on the dynamic and seismic behaviors of bridges. However, currently the constant damping ratios that are prescribed by most bridge seismic design codes can't truly represent the complicated damping character of actual structures. In this paper, a cyclic loading experiment was conducted to study the effect of stress amplitude on material damping of concrete to present an analyzing model of the material damping of concrete. Furthermore, based on the fundamental damping of structure measured under ambient vibration, combined with the presented stress-dependent material damping concrete, the seismic response of a bridge pier was calculated. Comparison between the calculated and experiment results verified the validity of the presented damping model. Finally, a modified design and analysis method for bridge was proposed based on stress-dependent damping theory, and a continuous rigid frame bridge was selected as the example to calculate the actual damping values and the dynamic response of the bridge under different earthquake intensities. The calculation results indicated that using the constant damping given by the Chinese seismic design code of bridges would overestimate the energy dissipation capacity of the bridge.