Effect of Transverse Reinforcement on the Seismic Performance of Bridge Substructure in High Seismic Zone of Bangladesh

The seismic performance study of bridges is critical for any earthquake-prone areas all over the world. The performance-based seismic design of bridge substructures in high seismic zones of an earthquake-prone country like Bangladesh is an important research topic due to the potential impact of earthquakes on the country’s transportation infrastructure. As Bangladesh has no bridge code, bridge designers in our country follow the AASHTO code to design bridges. The purpose of this research is to assess the seismic performance of a constructed bridge in a higher seismic zone of Bangladesh using the AASHTO guideline and the BNBC-defined seismic response spectrum for different tie spacing under different levels of the earthquake. This paper presents the result of the numerical models of the bridges that were designed according to the force-based method for high seismic zone, i.e., Sylhet. The only variable considered in this study is the spacing of transverse reinforcement. The results demonstrate that hinge capacity increases with the decrease of tie spacing. Furthermore, an increase in transverse reinforcement led to a significant improvement in ductility.