Design Criteria for Piers of Semi-integral

Bridges: Investigations on Normal Force

and Reinforcement Ratio

Daniel Gebauer(&), Marina Stümpel, Christoph von der Haar,

and Steffen Marx

Institute of Concrete Construction, Leibniz Universität Hannover,

Appelstraße 9a, 30167 Hannover, Germany
sekretariat@ifma.uni-hannover.de

Abstract. The design of semi-integral bridges is a challenging task for plan-

ning engineers. Most components of semi-integral bridges are connected
monolithically, and many parameters influence their structural behavior. This
paper deals with the piers of semi-integral bridges and their monolithic con-
nection to the superstructure. Simple design rules for conventional bridges, such
as “more reinforcement, more safety” are not valid for such interactive struc-
tures. In a monolithic connection no free deformation is permitted, and con-
straint forces and moments occur as a result. The magnitude of the constraint
forces and moments primarily depends on the stiffness of the structure, which is
influenced by several parameters. In this paper, two parameters are investigated:
the normal force, which influences the cracking state of the cross section and the
reinforcement ratio.
The goal of this paper is the determination of simple design criteria for the
preliminary design of the piers of semi-integral bridges.

Keywords: Design criteria
Load-bearing behavior
Moment–curvature

relationship
Piers
Semi-integral bridges

1 Introduction

Recently, semi-integral design has been used more frequently for long railway bridges
in Germany (Schenkel et al. 2009; Marx et al. 2011). Examples are the Scherkondetal
Bridge and the Unstruttal Bridge in Thuringia (Marx et al. 2010; Jung et al. 2011;
Sonnabend et al. 2016). The principal characteristic of such large semi-integral viaducts
is their great length without any joints. Temperature, creep and shrinkage cause large
longitudinal displacements in the superstructure. Because the bending stiffness of the
pier is lower than the strain stiffness of the superstructure, the deformations of the
superstructure correspond to the displacements of the pier heads. The monolithic
connection of piers and superstructure induces constraint forces and moments whose
magnitudes depend on the stiffness of the piers. The stiffness of a reinforced concrete
pier is dependent on the properties of the constituent materials, the geometry, the
reinforcement ratio and the cracking state of the pier. The cracking state of the pier is
influenced by the acting normal force.
© Springer International Publishing AG 2018
D.A. Hordijk and M. Luković (eds.), High Tech Concrete: Where Technology
and Engineering Meet, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-59471-2_142
 Design Criteria for Piers of Semi-integral Bridges 1227

This article deals with the influence of the normal force and reinforcement ratio on
the load-bearing behavior of piers of semi-integral bridges. These parameters are
investigated in parameter studies, in which one of the parameters is varied while all the
others are kept constant. From the results, design criteria for the piers of semi-integral
bridges are derived.
The moment–curvature relationship is used to describe the load-bearing behavior of
the pier cross sections.

2 Fundamentals

2.1 Material Behavior

There are two possible approaches for calculating the deformation of a cross section.
The first is a linear–elastic calculation, which has the disadvantage that the stiffness of
the cross section is overestimated for high loads (Stümpel et al. 2016). Consequently,
the constraint moment resulting from the pier curvature is very high. In reality, how-
ever, the pier stiffness decreases as soon as the concrete starts cracking. This fact can be
taken into account by using nonlinear material models for both the reinforcement and
the concrete. Here the nonlinear material models of Eurocode 2 are used for calculation
(DIN EN 1992-2 2013). In this way, the calculated constraint moments are smaller and
the reinforcement ratio decreases compared to a linear calculation.

2.2 Deformation Model

The load level has a direct influence on the stiffness of the structure, since cracking
depends on the stress level in a cross section. Therefore, the final stiffness distribution
in a structure must be determined iteratively.
A suitable way to
describe the load-bearing and
the deformation behaviors is
the calculation of the
moment–curvature relation-
ship for the cross sections
(Grünberg et al. 2011). This
relation describes the corre-
lation of the curvature and the
resulting constraint moments
by considering the nonlinear
material behavior. Put sim-
ply, the moment–curvature
relationship can be divided
into three different phases,
each of which ends at a
Fig. 1. Simplified moment–curvature relationship; cf. DIN characteristic point in the
1045-1 (2008) curve (illustrated in Fig. 1).
1228 D. Gebauer et al.

The first, linear phase describes the uncracked cross section. After the first crack
appears, the cross section progresses to state II (the second phase) and consequently
reacts less stiffly. The third and last phase begins with the yielding of the reinforcement
and ends with the failure of the cross section. Compared to the two previous phases, in
third phase, the strain in the reinforcing bars increases much faster with increasing load.
In addition to receiving a normal force from the bridge deck, the pier head is
subjected to the displacement and rotation imposed by the superstructure. According to
Eq. (1), the curvature, j, can be expressed as a function of the displacement, w, and the
rotation, h.

dh d 2 w
j¼ ¼ 2 ð1Þ
dx dx

Lastly, the failure behavior can be described using ductility, η (Eq. (2)), which is
the ratio of the curvature at failure, ju, and the curvature at yielding, jy. The greater the
ductility, the more plastic deformation can occur after the reinforcement starts yielding.
Thus, high ductility is an indicator for non-sudden failure.
ju
g¼ 1 ð2Þ
jy

3 Parameter Discussion

In this section, the normal force and reinforcement ratio as influencing parameters for
the moment–curvature relationship are discussed. The influence of either parameter on
the characteristic points of the moment–curvature relationship mentioned above will be
described. Finally, the load-bearing behavior in terms of ductility will be assessed.
The dimensions of
the cross section used
for all investigations are
shown in Fig. 2. The
dimensions b = 4.8 m
and h = 0.6 m, as well
as the concrete cover
c = 0.065 m and the
strength class of con-
Fig. 2. Drawing of the cross section used for the investigations crete, C30/37, remain
(dimensions in m) unchanged for all
investigations. The
reinforcement is arranged symmetrically for all investigations.
The following moment–curvature relationships are the results of iterative numerical
calculations.
 Design Criteria for Piers of Semi-integral Bridges 1229

3.1 Normal Force

To investigate the influence of the normal force, the relative normal force, m, (Eq. (3))
is used as a variable.

NEd
m¼ ð3Þ
b
h
fcd

In Eq. (3), NEd is the design value of the normal force, fcd is the design value of the
concrete strength, b is the width of the cross section and h is the height of the cross
section. All values except the normal force are kept constant. The area of reinforcement
is assumed to be As,tot = 326.56 cm2 (mechanical reinforcement ratio x = 0.3), while
the normal force NEd is varied to obtain the values of the relative normal force shown in
Figs. 3 and 4.

Fig. 3. Influence of the relative normal Fig. 4. Influence of the relative normal force on
force on the moment–curvature relation- the curvature at cracking, yielding and failure and
ship for x = 0.3 their relative bending moments for x = 0.3

Figure 3 shows the calculated relationships, while Fig. 4 shows the development of
the moments and curvatures at the characteristic points.
It can be seen that the moment and curvature at cracking increase with increasing
normal force. The moment at cracking increases nonlinearly with a decreasing slope,
while the curvature at cracking increases nonlinearly but with an increasing slope.
For yielding and failure, the moment development depend on whether the relative
normal force is above or below the normal force balance point mbal  0.45. Both the
yielding and failure moments attain their highest values at the balance point of the
normal force. These moments decrease with increasing distance of the normal force
from the balance point. The absolute values of the resulting moments are of the same
order of magnitude.
The development of the curvature at yielding and failure is different from that of the
moment at yielding and failure. While the curvature at yielding does not change much
depending on the relative normal force and has its maximum at the balance point of the
normal force, the curvature at failure reaches its maximum when the relative normal
1230 D. Gebauer et al.

force is at a minimum (i.e.

zero). The higher the normal
force, the lower the curvature at
failure and hence the more
brittle the structural behavior.
This conclusion can also be
confirmed by looking at the
ductility, η, in Fig. 5. The
ductility increases with
increasing relative normal
force. Only for normal force
values below mbal  0.3 does
the cross section exhibit the
Fig. 5. Influence of the normal force on the ductility for
required ductile structural
x = 0.3
behavior. At values above the
balance point, the structural
behavior is extremely brittle. This behavior is due to the strain levels in the cross
section.
While cross sections subjected to relative normal forces below the balance point
exhibit ductile failure, with the reinforcement yielding before secondary concrete
failure occurs, cross sections with normal forces at the balance point and above
experience brittle failure. The concrete fails before the reinforcement has yielded
(primary concrete failure).

3.2 Reinforcement Ratio

To investigate the influence of the reinforcement ratio, the mechanical reinforcement
ratio x (Eq. (4)) is varied. The normal force is set to NEd = 9,045.1 kN. All other
cross-sectional parameters are kept constant.

As;tot fyd
x¼
ð4Þ
b
h fcd

In Eq. (4), As,tot is the area of reinforcement, b and h are the width and height,
respectively, of the concrete section, and fyd and fcd are the design values of the
reinforcement tensile strength and the concrete compressive strength, respectively.
To avoid including the influence of the relative normal force m, the analysis is
performed for three different cases: m < mbal, m = mbal and m > mbal. For the three cases,
the relative normal force is chosen as m = 0.2, m = 0.45 and m = 0.8, respectively, while
the mechanical reinforcement ratio x is varied from x = 0 to x = 2 in steps of
Dx = 0.2. The resulting moment–curvature relationships are shown in Fig. 6. The
influence of the reinforcement ratio on the characteristic points of the moment–cur-
vature relationship is illustrated in Fig. 7. As the influence of the normal force was
investigated in the previous section, it is not part of the discussion in this section.
 Design Criteria for Piers of Semi-integral Bridges 1231

Fig. 6. Influence of the reinforcement ratio on the moment–curvature relationship for |m| = 0.2
(left), |m| = 0.45 (middle) and |m| = 0.8 (right)

Fig. 7. Influence of the reinforcement ratio on the curvature at cracking, at yielding and at
failure and the related bending moments for |m| = 0.2 (left), |m| = 0.45 (middle) and |m| = 0.8
(right)

As expected, the moments increase with increasing reinforcement ratio, because a

high reinforcement ratio results in a stiff cross section.
Irrespective of the magnitude of the relative normal force, all curvatures show
nonlinear behavior for low reinforcement ratios, which becomes more linear with
increasing reinforcement ratio. The more nonlinear behavior at low reinforcement
ratios could be explained by the dominating influence of the nonlinear material
behavior of the concrete. For high reinforcement ratios, there is a greater influence of
the bilinear material behavior of the reinforcement, which is reflected in the shape of
the moment–curvature relationship.
The curvature at cracking shown in Fig. 7 decreases with increasing reinforcement
ratio for all investigated relative normal forces. In contrast, the curvature at yielding
increases with increasing reinforcement ratio for all relative normal forces. The graph
of the curvature at failure has a different shape depending on the relative normal force
case. While it decreases for |m| < |mbal|, it increases for |m| > |mbal|. For |m| = |mbal| the
curvature is nearly constant. Thus, for low relative normal forces, an increasing rein-
forcement ratio leads to a decreasing curvature of the cross section. For high relative
normal forces, an increasing reinforcement ratio causes a decrease in the curvature at
cracking. This behavior is due to the strain level in the cross section. With a low the
relative normal force, the ultimate strain of the concrete is reached faster if the cross
section has a higher reinforcement ratio, because the tensile force component of the
1232 D. Gebauer et al.

reinforcement is larger and a greater force counterpart is required for the force equi-
librium. For |m| > |mbal|, the height of the concrete compression area is greater than for
|m| < |mbal|. In consequence, the higher forces resulting from the additional reinforce-
ment are distributed over this large compression area, which allows a higher curvature.
With |m| = |mbal|, both force components are of a similar magnitude, resulting in a
constant curvature independent of the reinforcement ratio.
As shown in Fig. 7, all moments increase with increasing reinforcement ratio.
However, there are differences between the moments at the characteristic points. While
the moment at cracking exhibits a nonlinear shape, the shapes of the moments at
yielding and failure are linear. In addition, the moments at yielding and failure are of
similar magnitude. The moment at cracking is much lower than the other two moments.
The determined influ-
ence of the reinforcement
ratio on the ductility
confirms the conclusions
mentioned above (see
Fig. 8). The influence of
the reinforcement ratio
for relative normal forces
|m| = |mbal| and |m| > |mbal|
is relatively small. The
influence is only signifi-
cant for relative normal
forces |m| < |mbal|.
The main finding
from this investigation is
Fig. 8. Influence of the reinforcement ratio on the ductility for
that low relative normal
different relative normal forces
forces combined with low
reinforcement ratios result in cross sections with the highest ductility. For high rein-
forcement ratios, the cross-sectional behavior is ductile as long as |m| < |mbal|, even
though the ductility is not as high as for low reinforcement ratios. In contrast, for
relative normal forces |m| = |mbal| and |m| > |mbal| the reinforcement ratio does not have a
great influence on the ductility. Therefore, the decisive factor for ductile behavior is the
normal force. The reinforcement ratio could be used to improve the ductile behavior,
i.e. the ratio can be reduced to obtain a less stiff cross section.
The second insight is that an increasing reinforcement ratio results in a significant
increase in the constraint moments, because the stiffness of the cross section increases.
This has to be considered during the design of a monolithically connected pier.

4 Conclusions and Outlook

For the design of monolithically connected piers of semi-integral bridges, the material
models used are decisive for determining the required reinforcement ratio. If linear
material models are used, the calculated required amount of reinforcement is larger than
necessary because the calculated moments are also higher.
 Design Criteria for Piers of Semi-integral Bridges 1233

Using a detailed analysis of the influencing parameters of the structural behavior,

suitable and unsuitable values and combinations of the two influencing parameters—
normal force and reinforcement ratio—were determined.
The most important property besides its load-bearing capacity is the ductility of the
structure. The investigations showed that the normal force is the decisive parameter for
ductile load-bearing behavior. Only cross sections subjected to a relative normal force
between 0.15 < m < 0.3 exhibit ductile cross-sectional behavior. Therefore, it is rec-
ommended that cross sections of piers should be designed with these numbers in mind.
It was further shown that an increasing reinforcement ratio has a negative impact on the
cross section—not in terms of ductility but in terms of the constraint moments, which
increase significantly. Reinforcement ratios of x < 0.35 are thus recommended.
Future investigations should deal with the influence of different cross-sectional
width–height ratios and of different combinations of normal force and cross-sectional
area that result in the same relative normal force. The influence of the concrete strength
class could also be investigated. The long-term objective is the development of general
design rules or design charts, for quick and accurate design of cross sections for
monolithically connected piers.

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