Effects of the Transverse Deck-Roadbed Pounding on the Seismic Behaviors of the Prefabricated Frame Bridge

Pounding effects on prefabricated frame bridges are not clear, which may influence seismic behaviors a lot in some cases. Prefabricated frame bridges are emerging structures designed to solve the problem of difficult land acquisition in highway expansion and reconstruction, the deck of the prefabricated frame bridge is adjacent to the original roadbed in the transverse direction, so the pounding potential exists under the earthquake ground motions. In this study, the artificial ground motions of the different seismic intensities are selected to carry out the nonlinear time history analyses, and the pounding effects on the prefabricated frame bridge are evaluated based on the pounding forces and the components’ seismic response. It is found that the pounding effects are not obvious in all cases; some energy can be dissipated in the pounding process, which is also limited to some extent. Finally, the influences of the gap distance and seismic intensity are investigated according to the parameter sensitivity analysis. The results indicate that the gap distance and the seismic intensity are the two important factors related to the pounding effects, the seismic response of the components will decrease when the pounding effects are obvious, and the transverse deformation of the deck cannot influence the stress state of the superstructure.