RESEARCH ON THE SEISMIC DESIGN FOR BOX CULVERTS USING A SIMPLIFIED METHOD BASED ON THE SHEAR STRAIN TRANSMITTING

Abstract

Previous researchers have proposed a simplified method for the design of seismic underground structures (such as cut-and-cover tunnels and utility ducts), which is capable of calculating the seismic sectional force with a lower computational load. However, it is not known if this method can be applied to box culverts for roads that have structural properties. Therefore, we evaluate the applicability of this method to the box culvert, and try to enhance the accuracy of the calculation by making an improvement. This simplified method consists of three calculation processes. The scope of our study contains two processes: First, we estimate the correlation of shear strain between the ground and the structure. Second, we determine the cross-sectional force in the box culvert elements using the shear strain obtained from the previous calculation process. Comparing with the results of dynamic analysis (which can accurately estimate the seismic response), we evaluate the accuracy and applicable range of the simplified method that we propose in this research.