A Study on the Strength and Ductility of Steel Bridge Piers with Tapered Plates

Since Hyogoken-nanbu earthquake in 1995, many studies about strength and ductility of cantilever type steel bridge piers have been conducted. However, most of them have used constant thickness plates. When horizontal loads act on cantilever type steel bridge piers, bending moments of these piers become maximum at bottom of piers, and they show triangular distribution. Therefore, piers with uniform cross section in direction of height are not efficient. To use tapered plate can improve this inadequacy. In this study, tapered plates are employed at bottom parts of cantilever type steel bridge piers, and seismic resistance performance of these piers are investigated by experimental and analytical method. From the investigation, a good seismic resistance performance in strength and ductility are obtained for steel bridge piers with tapered plates, comparing with constant thickness plates