Bumpers for reducing the effect of pounding between bridge decks

The study addresses the influence of bumpers as reduction measures at the bridge decks. The considered devices are steel spring, steel spring with additional viscous damper or steel spring with additional friction element. Gap between bridge decks remains. The reduction measure is placed at one end of the neighbouring girders. The considered earthquakes are the 1994 Northridge earthquake and the 1995 Kobe earthquake. For the nonlinear analysis a finite element method is used. The investigation shows that compared to the other measures the best reduction of the pounding force can be achieved with a friction device.