Research On Behavior Of New-type Rigid Connection Of Steel Girder And Reinforced Concrete Pier

The composite structural bridge is a construction composed with two or more than two kinds of material. It can fully utilize the advantages of each material. In this way, the structure is more economic and reasonable. The rigid connection between steel girders and reinforced concrete piers is one type of the important applications of composite construction.The rigid connection between steel girders and reinforced concrete piers can utilize the advantages of the steel and concrete. It also can increase the degree of redundancy of bridge, which can improve the monolithic and seismic performance of bridge. In addition, the negative moment at the support of bridge which is carried only by steel girder originally can be shared by steel girder and reinforced concrete pier together. This a ctually reduces the burden of the steel girder. Without using the bearing, the construction costs and the expenses of maintenance and administration can be reduced. Due to those beneficial features, the studies about the rigid connection between steel girders and reinforced concrete piers are attracting more and more attentions of researchers in recent years, and the rigid connection is also broadly applied in engineering practice.The rigid connection between steel girders and reinforced concrete piers are studied and applied only at some developed countries, for example, France, Germany and Japan. Not many works have been done in this filed in our country. Current rigid connections applied in engineering practice have the disadvantages of structure complicacy and the second-time concrete placing is usually required. The application of the composite structure is limited due to the complicacy of construction, long construction period and the difficulties in guaranteeing the quality of construction. To deal with these problems, a new-type rigid connection of steel girder and reinforced concrete pier is proposed in this study. The rigid connection is installed at the top of the reinforced concrete pier, instead of the intersection part of steel girder and reinforced concrete pier. The components of moment transferring steel plates and shear force transferring steel plates, the pier and the girder in rigid connection worktogether by use the high-strength bolts. Thus it guarantees structural characteristics of the rigid connection and is convenient for construction. Moreover, it saves second-time concrete placing, and reduces the construction period.The main work of this thesis is to use finite element method to study the behaviour of the new-type rigid connection under unilateral loading and reversed loading by choosing models and setting relevant parameters reasonably. The results are then compared with testing results. The mechanism of force transfer, failure state and seismic performance are investigated in order to provide instructions for designing of the connection in the future.