Experimental Study on Damage Morphology and Critical State of Three-hinge Precast Arch Culvert through Shaking Table Tests

Abstract

The three-hinge precast arch culvert is a new type of culvert which consists of two segmental precast units and three hinge points in the body. Since the culvert is outside the range of conventional culverts, which do not consider the seismic behavior in the design, the evaluation of the seismic performance is an important issue. In this study, large-scale shaking table tests were conducted to clarify the seismic behavior and damage morphology of the culvert using a strong earthquake response simulator. From the experimental results, it was confirmed that the hinges did not break before the arch elements reached the ultimate state.