Cyclic tests of a precast restrained rocking system for sustainable and resilient seismic design of bridges

Intensity measures, fragility analysis and dimensionality reduction of rocking under far‐field ground motions

“…Such a rocking mechanism limits the design loads and moments on both the structure and the foundation, offering great optimization potential. The effectiveness of rocking as an earthquake hazard mitigation strategy has been explored for various classes of structures, including rigid blocks, [ 1–8 ] columns of ancient temples [ 9–18 ] rocking frames, [ 19–27 ] rocking bridges [ 28–36 ] and rocking buildings. [ 36–44 ] Makris and Vassiliou [ 19,20 ] showed that the response of a rocking frame is equivalent to the response of a rigid free‐standing solitary column with the same slenderness as the column of the frame, but of a larger size.…”

“…The effectiveness of rocking as an earthquake hazard mitigation strategy has been explored for various classes of structures, including rigid blocks, [ 1–8 ] columns of ancient temples [ 9–18 ] rocking frames, [ 19–27 ] rocking bridges [ 28–36 ] and rocking buildings. [ 36–44 ] Makris and Vassiliou [ 19,20 ] showed that the response of a rocking frame is equivalent to the response of a rigid free‐standing solitary column with the same slenderness as the column of the frame, but of a larger size. For this reason, the rocking oscillator can be used to describe the dynamic response of a wide range of rocking isolated structures.…”

Uniform risk spectra for rocking structures

“…In the last half century, rocking has been extensively studied and it was proposed as an alternative seismic design method 1–14 . Rocking isolation is a resilient design alternative that has the potential of reducing the cost of conventionally designed bridges: it reduces the forces transmitted to the foundation and it can present low‐damage even after being subjected to design level events, provided that adequate detailing of the columns ends is employed 15–17 …”

“…Prestressing the restrainers would also change the uplifting force (Figure 1B). 15–32 A more stable system can also be achieved without changing the uplifting force by extending the block ends in a curved shape (Figure 1C) 33,34 or by adding damping or inerter devices 35–39 …”

Finite element modeling of free‐standing cylindrical columns under seismic excitation

“…The rocking oscillator is the one that can uplift from its base when subjected to sufficiently strong ground motion excitation (Figure 1). It is worth studying because it can describe a plethora of structures: First, since uplift works as a mechanical fuse, rocking can be used as a seismic design strategy for both bridges 1–24 and buildings 23,25–33 . Second, the out‐of‐plane response of masonry walls is a form of rocking motion 34–47 .…”