BEHAVIOUR OF CAISSON FOUNDATION UNDER STATIC AND SEISMIC CONDITIONS

Abstract

Bridges have been part of human civilization for many centuries now as they connect two locations separated by a river or any difficult terrain. Therefore, bridges facilitate trade, transportation and passage to locations which would otherwise be obscure and thus act as lifeline structures. Most bridges are supported by caissons which are massive and rigid foundation systems and is equipped to resist wide variety of loads like high magnitudes of vertical load, lateral load, uplift load and moments. Because of this virtue, caissons were supposed to be completely safe against any loading combination. However, The Great Hanshin earthquake of 1995 exposed the vulnerability of caissons against earthquake loads. An extensive literature review revealed several research gaps, such as lack of studies with consideration of combined failure wedge formed in front of caisson due to various resisting components, modified pseudo-dynamic study of caissons in layered soil, which could be addressed through the present study. Therefore, the present study attempts to study various aspects of caisson under static and seismic conditions.