Seismic performance of a two-span steel girder bridge with ABC connections

This paper presents the discussion and results from the first shake table test of a steel girder bridge system constructed using accelerated bridge construction (ABC) techniques. The bridge model was tested at the multi-shake table testing facility at the University of Nevada, Reno. The objective of this study was to evaluate the seismic performance of a bridge system incorporating six types of ABC connections under strong bidirectional earthquake shaking. The test model was a 0.35-scale, two-span steel plate-girder bridge with seat type abutments. The model was subjected to eight earthquake motions adopted from the 1994 Northridge-Sylmar ground motion applied with increasing amplitudes. The paper presents the global and local response of the bridge model with focus on ABC connections. Moreover, the paper provides a first hand demonstration of a full ABC bridge system seismic performance, which was found to be satisfactory and adequate to adopt the utilized ABC connections for future projects.