• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.755-763
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• 2002

Multispan simply supported bridges and multispan continuous bridges take a large portion of bridges in Central and Southeastern United Sates. The superstructure of the bridges are supported by steel rocker bearings. In general, the rocker bearings are modeled with ideal rollers or Coulomb fricition in seismic analysis. However, the rocker bearings have rocking action on pintles after rolling some distance. This rocking action may have considerable effect on the seismic performance of bridges. This study compares the effect of expansion rocker bearings models on a multispan simply supported and a multispan continuous bridge. Since the ideal roller model produces larger responses than the rocking model, its use is undesirable. However, the fricition and hardening model does not have much difference from the responses of the rocking model. In addition, the use of the tow models is convenient in seismic analyses of bridges. Although the rocking model can obtain more exact responses, its behavior is complicated and it may induce the conversion problem in time history analysis because it includes the abrupt changing of stiffiness. The friction and hardening model of expansion rocker bearings is therefore recommended in sesismic analysis.