Experimental and analytical study on pounding reduction of base‐isolated highway bridges using MR dampers

Abstract Pounding between adjacent superstructures has been a major cause of highway bridge damage in the past several earthquakes. This paper presents an experimental and analytical study on pounding reduction of highway bridges subjected to earthquake ground motions by using magnetorheological (MR) dampers. An analytical model, which incorporates structural pounding and MR dampers, is developed. A series of shaking table tests on a 1:20 scaled base‐isolated bridge model are performed to investigate the effects of pounding between adjacent superstructures on the dynamics of the structures. Based on the test results, the parameters of the linear and the nonlinear viscoelastic impact models are identified. Performance of the semiactive system for reducing structural pounding is also investigated experimentally, in which the MR dampers are used in conjunction with the proposed control strategy, to verify the effectiveness of the MR dampers. Structural responses are also simulated by using the established analytical model and compared with the shaking table test results. The results show that pounding between adjacent superstructures of the highway bridge significantly increases the structural acceleration responses. For the base‐isolated bridge model considered here, the semiactive control system with MR dampers effectively precludes pounding. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.