Behavior of a Truss Bridge after the Collapse of a Member
In 2007, a truss bridge in Minneapolis, USA collapsed completely and drivers were killed. Fracture of a gusset plate led the collapse of the whole structure in this case, In the same year, some truss bridges in Japan were found to have a severely damaged member and traffic had to be stopped until sufficient repair was done. Since then, the behavior of a bridge after a member collapse has attracted many researchers. Many conducted static analyses by simply removing a member while some included the effect of the impact associated with the member collapse. However, it is not clear at all how to include the effect of the impact. In the present study, the static analysis with and without the effect of the impact and the dynamic analysis are conducted. In all the analyses, geometrical and material nonlinearities are included. Based on the results, it is discussed how the effect of the impact should be taken into account in the static analysis and the difference between static and dynamic analyses.