Physical assessment of wave forces on bridge girder impacted by potential tsunami hazard

• Main Authors: Rahman, Sadia, Khan, M.T.R.
• Format: Article
• Published: Taylor and Francis Ltd. 2022
• Subjects: TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)
• Online Access: http://eprints.um.edu.my/43466/; https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85092467550&doi=10.1080%2f09715010.2020.1832924&partnerID=40&md5=fe8167069e6b6562193996f77b88e16b

Bridges are one of the most susceptible structural elements that can be viciously impacted by tsunami disaster. During the latest few tsunami hazards, a number of bridges were affected severely due to the lack of proper incorporation of tsunami forces in design guidelines. Therefore, it becomes imperative to evaluate the stability of bridges through the analysis of tsunami-induced forces on bridge structures. In the present study, laboratory experiments were carried out to quantify the exerted tsunami forces on girder model. Broken waves along with unbroken waves were considered for the analysis purpose. The maximum horizontal forces were larger for the broken waves than the unbroken waves. Results showed that the initial impact forces were larger than the hydrodynamic forces for broken waves whereas the opposite was true for unbroken waves. Measured forces on girder model, located in higher position, were larger and increased with increasing wave height. Lower girder position showed better performance than higher girder position regardless of wave height. One predictive formula was proposed to estimate the horizontal wave pressure on the seaward side of girder using as input the wave height and girder height. The normalized wave pressure increased as tsunami wave height increased. © 2020 Indian Society for Hydraulics.