HINDSIGHT AND

FORESIGHT ON
THE PERFORMANCE OF
PRESTRESSED CONCRETE
BRIDGES IN THE
SAN FERNANDO
EARTHQUAKE
Arthur L. Elliott

Bridge Engineer, California Division of Highways

Sacramento, California

A careful assessment of the effects of the 1971

San Fernando Earthquake on prestressed concrete
bridges, the lessons learned, and the necessary
measures taken to improve performance under
similar circumstances.

Two basic questions that are asked

about the effect of the San Fernando
Earthquake* on prestressed concrete
bridges are:
1) How did the prestressed structures come through?
2) What design changes have been
made as a result of the earthquake?
The answers are easy if the questions
are taken literally. All the prestressed
concrete structures came through in
good shape. No required changes were
discovered in our prestressing design.
Nevertheless, some prestressed structures did `bite the dust" and the purpose of this article is to describe why
they did, and what the California
*On Feb. 9, 1971, in Southern California
8

Bridge Department is doing to try to

prevent a recurrence.

Loss of support
Actually, as far as we know, there
was not a single failure in any superstructure, prestressed or not. The difficulties, such as they were, came in the
connections between sections and the
ground. When the superstructures lost
their support, there was little they
could do but fall. But even fallen, many
of them remained intact; some broke on
impact with the ground. The earth
heaved and pulled, the normal ground
continuity was broken and the supports
were jerked out from under the structuresand they went down.

Unusual
vertical motion
Another of the strange things about this
earthquake was the magnitude of the
vertical motion. As has been explained
several times, the shock waves came up
from the epicenter deep below the
mountains on about a 45 deg. angle so
that the horizontal and vertical displacements were often about equal.
This meant that beside getting a violent
shake sideways, structures got a very
severe vertical blow. You can see the
effect of this in some of the reinforced
concrete columns that exploded in the
middle. They didn't break at the top or
bottom, where the racking and swaying
might logically cause them to fail. As
illustrated in Fig. 1, they exploded right
in the middle as though they had been
crushed by some huge testing machine.
This was somewhat of a new idea, even
among earthquake specialists. For
years, earthquakes have been thought
of as horizontal motionsas mostly they
are. But here, we got caught in the "eye
of the storm" so to speak, and the magnitude of the vertical accelerations was
really astounding.

A giant
laboratory experiment
The earthquake might be considered
a monstrous laboratory experiment in
which some modern designed structures, calculated to withstand normal
earthquake shocks, were completely demolished. They were tested beyond the
limit of their endurance. They went to
their design load and then beyond, just
as in a laboratory experiment the beam
or column is carried on past the design
load to see how it fails, We found out
how they failed. Never before on a
California highway had a structure

PCI Journal / March-April 1972

Fig. 1. Typical column failure

been so violently mistreated as to cause
its failure. Oh, a number of them have
been violently shaken. One that was
under construction during a previous
earthquake was badly deformed; but
never had the experiment been carried
to its bitter conclusion to see just how
they failed. The benefit of any laboratory experiment is what you learn from
it.
We learned several things and many
of them are obvious even though not
readily susceptible to calculation of
stresses. The obvious failures could be
pointed out by any observerengineer
or not. (And don't think they
weren't!)

Higher
design factor
One of our first reactions was that we

OR
MIN.

4- * 11 BARS

FULL LENGTH
COLUMN BARS
UP TO 30'

*5

SPIRAL
SPACI NG
@12"

NEW FOOTING

BAR5 ^

@ ^On

-.

Fig. 2. Revised column reinforcing details

have been underestimating the forces

we are dealing with. There is nothing
like seeing one of your bridges laid out.
on the ground to emphasize the fact
that it didn't have what it takes. While
we well realize that no practical design
would have survived undamaged in the
critical locations, nevertheless we
would have liked the bridges to fight
back a little harder. To that end, we
immediately more than doubled the
factors we were using in equivalent static designs.
This experience made it very clear
that static design alone is not the answer to providing an earthquake-resistant structure. The motions create some
unusual stresses. Some waves will cancel out, some will reinforce and increase
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the loads beyond what might be expected. There are a number of projects
going right now to develop reliable designs to resist the dynamic forces of
earthquakes. When these get worked
out, we will have some idea of how the
structures will react and probably be
better able to make them resist. Until
then, we have arbitrarily raised the design factors. We feel more comfortable
with these higher factors because they
come closer to the ranges which the
Japanese have been using for some
time. Their whole country is practically
an earthquake laboratory so they have
had a number of chances to try out
their theory. Their lowest design factor
is 0.10g and, in bad situations, they run
as high as 0.35g.

Stronger
column containment

our bridges the day after the earthquake.

Another early observation was on those

exploded columns as well as several
other columns which were literally
ground to dust. If we could have had
more and stronger spiral wrapping,
maybe we could have held them together. Not that we could have prevented a lot of cracking and maybe disintegration of the concrete, but with
better containment we might have kept
them, at worst, as a basket of rocks and
supported the structures on them
though probably with some sagging. As
illustrated in Fig. 2, we now require
heavier, closer spaced spirals and better
anchorage for hoops and ties. This was
a design change we instituted in all of

Hinge restrainers
Then there was the problem of the
bridges coming apart at the expansion
joints, as shown in Fig. 3 where a twospan unit in the upper structure fell off
the joint seat at each end onto the
structures below. Additional evidence
of movement at interior joints is seen in
Fig. 4. It was easy to see that, if the
expansion joints could have been made
to hang together, at least one of the
bridges might not have fallen, provided
it still had some support underneath it.
That was another early change we
made. We started a broad program to
tie all of our expansion joints together,

Fig. 3. Two span unit of upper bridge collapsed due to loss of support at hinge
joints
PCI Journal / March-April 1972

11

We are also in the midst of an analysis of all the other structures in the
state to determine which of the bridges
already built might be subject to this
weakness. Over the next few years, we
will proceed on a program to strengthen theseexisting bridges to make their
expansion hinges secure.

Fill settlements
Probably one of the most disillusioning
things about this 'quake was the action
of the earth. More or less typical settlement of fills behind abutments is shown
in Fig. 8. We knew that fills settled during shakes but I don't think we were
quite prepared for the lack of end restraint in the fills. Contrary to previous
assumptions, end fills against abutments
did not provide resistance to longitudinal movements. After the first shock,
there was no restraint. Then, in contrast to this lack of restraint at abutments, there is an opposite situation
where a fill might become somewhat
liquid and be hurled against the end of
a bridge by the earth movement. The
structure should be designed as a freestanding body, able to withstand these
forces.

Fig. 4. Effect of hammering at a hinge

joint

either in midspan or at an abutment, in

such a way that they could move as required but under a strong motion they
would be restrained. We are using several different systems depending upon
the structure type. Three details we are
using to hold the hinges together are
shown in Figs. 5, 6 and 7. Maybe something else will give but we think the
hinges will stay hooked together.

Tougher footings
One very obvious fact was that, unless you can maintain concrete in a co-

VERTICAL RESTRAINER.
BENT CAP

CANTILEVER.

.a

SUSPENDED SPAN
,

Fig. 5. Longitudinal hinge restrainer for new construction

12

G"GALV. PIPE
7-

4 CABLES

STEEL R
POLYSTYRENE
ELASTOMERIC PAD
STEEL FL
NEOPRENE-

'3 SPIRAL 3 PITCH

Fig. 6. Section through hinge restrainer for new construction

hesive block, it will lose its bond and

fail to grip the steel. We found that, in
many cases, the movement reduced the
concrete to gravel and dust, and bond,
as such, became non-existent. Therefore, a third problem which faced us
was keeping intact the concrete in the
footings as well as in the splice areas
where columns joined large drilled-in
cylinder piles. Some footing blocks disintegrated. This released dowels and

main column bars so the columns naturally fell over. An example of this type of
collapse is shown in Fig. 9. First, we are
trying to keep the footing blocks intact.
As indicated in Fig. 2, we are placing
more reinforcing steel in the tops of the
footing blocks and placing the bars to
try to maintain the whole footing block
in a solid cohesive piece. Then, we are
requiring that in columns less than 30
ft. long, there be no splices or dowels.

HOLE
('PiPE

7 - 4f CA6LEE

\ S-rEE L PL

-POLYSTYRFr)^
---NEOPREt E

Fig. 7. Section through hinge restrainer for existing bridges

PCI Journal / March-April 1972

13

Fig. 8. Abutment fill settlement

These columns must have continuous

vertical bars from their secure anchorage in the bottom of the footing to an
equally good anchorage in the top of
the cap in the superstructure.
Some of the footings showed a tendency to lift off the piles. The answer
is a better anchorage detail between the
piles and the footing concrete and this
we are also adding.
Some of the abutments were broken
up by the structure thrashing back and
forth between the end walls. Corrective
measures include improving the keys
and beefing up the walls to be able to
take more of this lateral load.

Other
potential problems
Then there are a few other imponderable problems: How do you keep a
skewed bridge from rotating? What do
you do when the whole bridge moves
sideways? What do you do when the
approach fills drop away and leave the
bridge seeming to stick up out of the
highway? (This last point really concerns the Japanese engineers. They said
some people are killed in almost every
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earthquake because they run into the

bridge ends.) These are all problems
which must be met and handled on an
individual basis.
It is impossible to anticipate some of
the things an earthquake might do. We
had an expansion rocker turned 90 deg.
between its bearing plates without the
bridge seemingly having moved at all.
We had elastomeric pads work out of a
joint and hang over the edge like a limp
noodle while the bridge remained in almost perfect position. There will always
be a lot of things happening that cannot be anticipated or prevented.

Philosophy for
earthquake resistance
We think we have plugged some of the
loopholes and, if a similar earthquake
occurred, maybe we would come
through it a little better. Our basic
philosophy is not that we hope to escape damage should we have a similar
occurrence, but we would hope that
we could keep most or all of the structures from falling. Two people lost their
lives because a bridge fell on them.
They are the ones we are thinking of.

Should we be caught in the center of

the maelstrom again, we will not be too
concerned if the bridge looks like a
tired bedspring, just so long as it does
not fall.
You do not have enough money to
design structures to completely withstand this sort of shock and earth displacement. The difficulty is that you are
not talking about just one or two structures in a specific location. All of California is a potential earthquake disaster
area so, if you are committed to this
sort of an extreme damage prevention
project, it means that every bridge in
the state must get this super-strength
design treatment. It just can't be done
economically. When the cost of supplying the additional strength necessary to
avoid damage exceeds the cost of making repairs, then you are wasting
money. When you think of this excess
expenditure in terms of the two bridges
we build every day, then you soon get
into some fantastic cost figures. We
have to assume a reasonable attitude.

odds they must accept, however large.

You would cause a cry of conscientious
indignation if you said that you had intentionally designed a structure with a
one in a million chance that it would
fail.
So instead, we see the architects and
engineers suddenly speaking of earthquake resistant structures. Nothing is
erff , ct. We have water resistant
watchesnot waterproof. There are
blow-out resistant tiresnot blow-out
proof. We have as near to 100 percent
perfection as can be achieved in our
space program and yet in every flight
there is something that doesn't work
just right.

What are the odds?

This brings us to a delicate subject
that of probabilities. Everything we do
in life or in engineering is based upon
probabilities. Someone can quote you
odds on practically everything you do.
At every airport, you see people betting they will never get there by buying
flight insurance. People accept these as
normal risks. But, when you speak of
the design of highway structures, you
would do well to stay away from discussing probabilities. People just don't
understand if you say there is even a remote chance of a failure. People are inveterate gamblers, whether they realize it or not. They gamble on all sorts
of daily situations. They will risk their
lives to save a few seconds in a traffic
jam. But they want to do their own
gambling. They don't want anyone else
gambling for them and giving them

PCI Journal / March-April 1972

Fig. 9. Column bars pulled out of footing due to loss of bond

So when we speak of our structures

as earthquake resistant, we mean that
they are as earthquake resistant as it is
possible to get them within reasonable
limits of acceptable damage; and as
safe as we can possibly make them. We
are not quoting odds. We are just say-

15

ing we are doing everything we can

conceive of, ever recognizing that nothing is perfect. And if old Mother Nature decides to pick on some of our
structures specifically, all we can do is
stand back and marvel at the thoroughness with which she does her work.

The lesson continues

The "test" is completed and the results
are being analyzed. As footings are being dug out and piles uncovered, more
data are being accumulated on the behavior of structures during such violent

motion. From all this there will be improvements in design analyses and details, and the future structures will reflect what has been learned. The
AASHO Committee on Bridges and
Structures currently is working on new
earthquake design standards to be used
all over the country, and to some extent
over the world. We are assisting in their
preparation and they will certainly be
influenced by what was learned from
the 1971 San Fernando Earthquake.
It is certain that one of our most destructive experiences is also going to
turn out to be one of our most instructive.

Discussion of this paper is invited.

Please forward your discussion to PCI Headquarters by July 1
to permit publication in the July-August 1972 issue of the PCI JOURNAL.

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