Collision in the expansion joint effects on the seismic behavior of large-scale aqueduct

Abstract

Under earthquake, two beams of the aqueduct’s expansion joint may collide; thus, this will endanger the safety of the structure and even lead to girder falling accident. Quite a few studies of this issue use the simple one-dimensional model, but little takes the collision phenomenon under the action of multi-dimensional earthquake into account. According to the Contact-Impact Problems of large-scale aqueduct under earthquake action between the adjacent beam segments, a three-dimensional contact analysis model has been used to simulate the collision phenomenon. And the response of aqueduct structure collision one-dimensional seismic and multidimensional earthquake is compared; the results reveal that the three-dimensional frictional contact impact finite element model can simulate the real aqueduct structure under seismic pounding effect.