Seismic Strengthening Effect on an Existing Bridge Abutment by Ground Anchor

The seismic retrofit of bridges can be classified into two ways. One is to directly strengthen the critical members of the bridges such as the pier columns, the foundations and other components. Another way is to improve the supporting condition of the superstructure or insert an energy dissipation device such as to change the existing steel bearings to the rubber ones to enhance the seismic performance of existing bridges. In this study, ground anchor was adopted to improve the seismic performance of an existing bridge abutment. According to the non-linear dynamic analysis results, this indirectly retrofit method can improve the seismic performance of an abutment effectively.