A parametric study of optimum tall piers for railway bridge viaducts

Francisco J. Martinez-Martin, Fernando Gonzalez-Vidosa, Antonio Hospitaler and Victor Yepes

Abstract

This paper presents a parametric study of reinforced concrete bridge tall piers with hollow, rectangular sections. Such piers are typically used in railway construction of prestressed concrete viaducts. Twenty one different piers have been studied with seven column heights of 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 and 100 m and three types of 10-span continuous viaducts, whose main span lengths are 40, 50 and 60 m. The piers studied are intermediate columns placed in the middle of the viaducts. The total number of optimization design variables varies from 139 for piers with column height of 40 m to 307 for piers with column height of 100 m. Further, the results presented are of much value for the preliminary design of the piers of prestressed concrete viaducts of high speed railway lines.

Key Words

ant colony optimization; concrete structures; economic optimization; structural design; tall piers

Address

Francisco J. Martinez-Martin: Department of Geotechnical Engineering, Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, Camino de Vera s/n, 46022 Valencia, Spain Fernando Gonzalez-Vidosa, Antonio Hospitaler and Victor Yepes: Department of Construction Engineering, Institute of Concrete Science and Technology (ICITECH), Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, Camino de Vera s/n, 46022 Valencia, Spain

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