Bridge piers with structural fuses and bi-steel columns. II: Analytical investigation

This paper presents the results of an analytical investigation conducted to replicate experimentally obtained behavior, and better understand the behavior of the proposed structural fuse concept for bridges that is presented in a companion paper. First, a steel plate shear link (SPSL) proposed as a new type of structural fuse is described. Equations are derived to define its shear-moment interaction equation, to determine some of its critical design parameters, and to quantify the link ductility, lateral stiffness and strength. Strengths and stiffnesses equations are developed using free-body diagrams (FBDs) for the tested systems as a convenient simple design tool. Finite-element models (FEM) are developed by using the finite-element software package ABAQUS/explicit to validate the proposed SPSL concept, and then to replicate the full range of results obtained from the experiments. Comparisons between the analytical and experimental results are conducted to highlight the differences in behavior among all tested specimens. The simple numerical equations correctly represent the expected strengths and stiffnesses of the fuse systems. Further, the results obtained from the ABAQUS model accurately captured the global behavior of the system, and provided valuable insight into individual fuse behavior.