Seismic Bridge Analysis & Design Workshop
Course Description:
This one day seismic engineering seminar is sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration in cooperation with your local State Department of Transportation. The seminar will provide engineers the fundamental structural dynamics knowledge required to understand both force-based and displacement-based seismic design principals in accordance with the AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Specifications and AASHTO Guide Specifications for LRFD Seismic Bridge Design. The course will introduce the Capacity Design concept, which prevents column shear failure and ensures little or no damage to the structural components such as cap beam and foundation. The course will provide bridge owners and designers with the concepts required to develop the most practical design policies and procedures for their State-specific hazards. While this training will be useful to engineers who perform seismic analysis and design in high seismicity regions, it is specifically intended to assist States that have most of their bridges in areas of low to moderate seismicity.
Learning Outcomes:
By the end of this course, participants should be able to:
- Explain how the fundamentals of structural dynamics describe the response of bridges to seismic accelerations
- Develop a response spectrum and explain its use in the seismic analysis of bridges modeled as single- and multiple-degrees-of-freedom systems
- Relate the differences between the AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Specifications (force-based) and AASHTO Guide Specifications for LRFD Seismic Bridge Design (displacement-based)
- Determine most appropriate seismic design specification to use in your State.
- Apply capacity design principals and the use of inelastic hinging design forces for the design of cap beams, foundations and column shear.
Target Audience:
The target audience is structural design engineers who are responsible for designing highway bridges in low to moderate seismic regions.
To Schedule, contact:
Jeffrey Ger, Senior Structural Engineer, (202) 868-3788, Jeffrey.Ger@dot.gov
Instructor Bios:
Jeffrey Ger, P.E., is a Senior Structural Engineer with the Federal Highway Administration's Resource Center in Atlanta, Georgia, and was the FHWA Division Bridge Engineer in Florida. Before joining FHWA, he worked with the Missouri Department of Transportation where he was extensively involved with projects for the seismic retrofitting and strengthening of bridges in Missouri. He received his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla. He has published more than 50 technical papers in structural engineering. In 2011, he published a book entitled "Seismic Design Aids for Nonlinear Pushover Analysis of Reinforced Concrete and Steel Bridges". Dr. Ger was appointed as one of the seven members of US Transportation Infrastructure Reconnaissance Team traveling to Chile in April 2010, to assess the bridge damage condition due to the February 27, 2010, Chile earthquake.
Derek Soden, P.E., is a Senior Structural Engineer with the Federal Highway Administration's Resource Center in Denver, Colorado. As a member of the Structures Technical Services Team, Derek provides technical assistance and training in the areas of bridge design, construction, and inspection. From 2009 to 2012, Derek was the Assistant Division Bridge Engineer for FHWA's Florida and Puerto Rico Divisions. From 1998 to 2009, Derek was a design engineer for the Alaska Department of Transportation where he developed designs for new bridges and bridge repair, rehabilitation and seismic retrofit projects throughout the state. He also provided technical support on bridge construction issues, specification development, and the Bridge Section's AASHTO technical committee work in seismic and foundation engineering. Derek received his B.S. in Civil Engineering in 1997 from the University of Alaska in Fairbanks (where he was born and raised) and his M.S. in Structural Engineering in 1998 from the University of California, Berkeley.
Email: Derek.Soden@dot.gov Tel: (720) 413-7436
Registration Fee
The course is free of charge to those attending, but is offered on a 'reservation-only' basis and limited to seat availability.
Agenda
8:00 am Welcome, Introductions
8:30 am Overview of Seismic Design Specifications in US
9:00 am Structural dynamics Fundamental
9:45 am Break
10:45 am Seismic Response Spectrum Analysis
(noon) Lunch (on-your-own)
1:00 pm LRFD Bridge Design Specification (Force Base)
2:30 pm Break
2:45 pm Guide Specifications for LRFD Seismic Bridge Design (Displacement Base)
3:45 pm Adjourn