Seismic performances of three- and four-sided box culverts: A comparative study

Studying the critical response characteristics of box culverts with diverse geometrical configurations under seismic excitations is a necessary step to develop a reasonable design method. In this work, a numerical parametric study is conducted on various soil-culvert systems, aiming to highlight the critical difference in the seismic performances between three- and four-sided culverts. Two-dimensional numerical models consider a variety of burial depths, flexibility ratios and foundation widths, assuming a visco-elastic soil condition, which permits to compare with the analytical solutions and previous studies. The results show that flexible three-sided culverts at a shallow depth considerably amplify the spectral acceleration and Arias intensity. Larger racking deformation and rocking rotation are also predicted for the three-sided culverts, but the bottom slab influence decreases with increasing burial depth and foundation width. The bottom slab combined with the burial depth and structural stiffness also significantly influences the magnitude and distribution of the dynamic earth pressure. The findings of this work shed light on the critical role of the bottom slab in the seismic responses of box culverts and may have a certain reference value for the preliminary seismic design using R-F relation.