ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I wish to express my most sincere appreciation and gratitude to Dr. Vipul Prakash,
Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee,
Roorkee, for his invaluable guidance and continuous encouragement during preparation of
this dissertation work.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all my dearest friends,Nikita Thangjam,Anuj

Saurabh,Mustesin Ali,Shreyans Kanswa,Teja Kumar Chandaluri,Varahala Babu,Saurabh
Tariyal and Sonu Rajak for the immeasurable amount of support and guidance they have
provided throughout this study .

Finally, I wish to record my sincere gratitude for the blessings of my parents for their
encouragement and moral support during this study.

Place: Roorkee

Date: (HEMAM PRASANTA SINGH)

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 ABSTRACT

This research effort is aimed at studying arches, their analysis and design. In this study
small computer programs in MATLAB are being developed to obtain numerical solutions for
arches of parabolic, circular,etc., for loadings that govern their design. . The governing
differential equation of a parabolic arch is derived and it is made linearized so that solutions
can be obtain effortlessly. Various design parameters are formulated in non-dimensional form
so that the designer can design and analyse effortlessly and give them an intuitive
understanding behaviour of the structure.

For buckling analysis, instead of using curved beam elements, the arch is being modelled as
consisting of a large number of small straight beam segments arranged according to the shape
of the arch. This model is like the finite element model that is created in modern computer
analysis, which also lack provision for curved beam elements. However, instead of using
nodal DDOFS as the unknowns, these programs will use maximum of THREE unknown
REDUNDANTS the horizontal reaction, the bending moment at the left-end of the arch and
the bending moment at the right-end of the arch. Thus, these programs will be able to cater to
three-hinged, two-hinged and fixed-fixed arches of parabolic, circular, elliptical and catenary
shapes. In reality a structure is in static equilibrium in the unmoving state attained after all
deformations have occurred. It will be assumed that the reference arch shape corresponds to
its deformed state after dead loads have been applied, because all the deformations that occur
due to dead loads during construction of the arch bridge can largely be compensated by the
designer by estimating them beforehand and incorporating the estimates in the construction
process itself. The live load will then be applied in small increments and the change in
geometry of the arch will be computed after each increment and this change shall be
considered for computing the values of the redundants. It is proposed to consider change in
geometry due to flexural deformations only. It is proposed to neglect shear deformations and
axial deformations and geometric stiffness effects of shears and bending moments, because
well-designed arches should largely be funicular for dead loads and shears and bending
moments due to non-funicular loads should be small. And further, live loads are typically a
small fraction in comparison to dead loads, and the axial deformations due to dead load are
assumed to have been compensated by the designer during the construction process.
Neglecting axial and shear deformations reduces the number of design parameters, and

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usually the axial and shear stiffness of arches should be quite large. The analysis model,
loading and results of the analysis shall be presented in the form of non-dimensional charts,
which will be specially suited for preliminary design of the arch bridge. The form of these
non-dimensional charts has been decided based on results reported in research literature; and
our results will be compared with results reported therein.

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 CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I

ABSTRACT II

CONTENT IV

LIST OF FIGURES VI

LIST OF TABLES VIII

NOTATIONS & ABBREVIATIONS IX

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1-19

1.1 What is an arch? 1

1.2 Comparison of Arch Bridge with Other Bridge Types 3

1.3 Brief History of Arch Bridges 4

1.4 Types of Arch Bridges 5

1.5 Structural Analysis of Arch Bridges 8

1.5.1 Three hinged arch

1.5.2 Two hinged arch

1.6. Buckling of Arch Rib 13

1.7 Objectives and outline of the thesis 16

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 20-25

2.1 Pippard et al: Elastic theory for arch bridges 20

2.2 Robin Gurney Charlwood: Lateral stability of arches 21

2.3 Hendry et al.: Full scale and model arch tests 21

2.4 Harvey & Smith: Mechanism method with program ARCHIE 22

2.5 Choo and Gong: The MAFEA suite 22

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 2.6 Loo & Yang: Cracking and failure analysis 23

2.7 Heyman: The plastic method and mechanism approach 23

2.8 Melbourne et al. : Rigid-block analysis 23

2.9 Cai JianGuo, Feng Jian, Chen Yao & Huang LiFeng 24

2.10 Mario M. Attard Jianbei Zhu David C. Kellermann 24

In-plane buckling of prismatic funicular arches

2.11 Concluding remarks 25

CHAPTER 3: DEFLECTION THEORY ON ARCH 26 -54

3.1 Governing Differential Equation of arches 27

3.2 Algorithm for Arch bridge analysis 31

3.3 Influence lines for supporting columns and horizontal reactions 35

3.4 Deflections of the stiffened girder 37

3.5 Influence lines for two-hinged arch 40

3.6 Influence lines of fixed parabolic arch 43

3.7 Mode shapes and Frequencies of vibration 47

CHAPTER 4: IN PLANE STABILITY OF ARCHES 55-63

4.1 Linear and Non linear elastic stability 55

4.2 Numerical analysis using MATLAB programming 56

4.3 Symmetrical Loadings on Symmetrical Arches 60

4.4 Unsymmetrical Loading 62

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 64

REFERENCES 66

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 LIST OF FIGURES

1.1 Arch components

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1.2 (a) Typical three-hinged arch ,(b) Two hinged arch (c) hingeless arch
1.3 Open spandrel deck arch bridge 7
1.4 Godavari Bowstring or Tied arch bridge 7
1.5 Analysis of three -hinged arch 9
1.6 (a) Analysis of two- hinged arch (b) Analysis of two- hinged arch 10
1.7 (a) Primary buckling load vs deflection 13
(b) Secondary buckling load vs deflection

1.8 Load vs deflection curve showing limit point

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1.9 (a) Symmetrical Snap through buckling mode ,(b) Antisymmetric
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bifurcation buckling
1.11 Load vs Deflection curve showing bifurcation point 15
3.1 Typical Stiffened Deck arch bridge 27
3.2 Bending moment of simple supported beam due to live load P 31
3.3 Simple supported Beam with applied downward load vector 32
3.4 Influence line for hanger forces by KK borgaonkar 35
3.5 Influence line for supporting columns forces by MATLAB 35
3.6 (a) Influence line for horizontal reaction of two hinged parabolic arch 36
(MATLAB) and (b) Influence line for horizontal reaction of two hinged
parabolic arch (Lily Beyer,2012).
3.7 Maximum live load deflections due to moving point load P (elastic theory) 37
(a) MATLAB and (b) Borgaonkar.
3.8 Maximum live load deflections due to moving point load P 38
(a) MATLAB and (b) Borgaonkar.
3.9 Maximum live load deflections of stiffened girder due to patch loads p 39

3.10 (a) Bending moment influence for elastic condition by MATLAB 40-41
(b) Positive and negative moment envelope(Lily Beyer,2012)
and (c)Maximum moment influences for different G values by Borgaonkar
3.11 Maximum Bending moment coefficients for moving point load P anywhere 41
on the span of arch for different G values by MATLAB Program

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3.12 Influence lines for Shear force two hinged parabolic arch 42

3.13 Influence line for supporting columns of a fixed arch 43

3.14 Influence line for shear forces of a fixed arch 43

3.15 Influence line for moments of a fixed arch ,Elastic condition (MATLAB). 44

3.16 Influence line for moments at the x/L=0 for elastic condition ie =0 44

(Richard Way Mah Lee,1956)

3.17 Influence line for moments at the x/L=0 .25 for elastic condition ie =0 , 45

(Richard Way Mah Lee,1956)

3.18 Influence line for moments at the x/L=0.5 for elastic condition ie 0 , 45

(Richard Way Mah Lee,1956).

3.19 Stodola iteration technique. (Clough & Penzien ,dynamics of structures,2003). 47

3.20 Elastic condition mode shapes comparison between MATLAB and Borgaonkar 48-49
results

3.21 (a) STAAD model of an Arch, (b) first mode shape and (c) second mode shape 49-50

3.22 Variation in mode shapes for different values of G 51

4.1 Model of an arch discretized into large number of straight segments. 57
4.2 Vertical loads vs Horizontal reactions graph 58
4.3 Antisymmetrical snap through buckling in uniform parabolic arch under 59
uniformly distributed load along the horizontal projection
4.4 Symmetrical snap through mode in sequence for a uniform circular arches loaded 61
along the arch
4.5 (a) Unsymmetrical loading over the span.of a uniform parabolic arch 62
and (b) Antisymmetrical mode

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 LIST OF TABLES

Table No. Title of Table Page No.

I Comparison of co-efficient of natural frequencies 53

II Critical vertical load and critical horizontal reaction for a

parabolic arch under pure compression (asymmetrical Snap through mode) 60

III Critical vertical and horizontal loads for a parabolic arch loaded along
the arch axis. (antisymmetrical snap through buckling ) 60

IV Critical vertical and horizontal loads for for uniform circular arches loaded 61
along the arch

V Critical vertical and horizontal loads values under 63

unsymmetrical loading for a uniform parabolic arches

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 NOTATIONS & ABBREVIATIONS

b Height of the arch at an arbitrary section

EI Flexural rigidity of the arch rib.

G Geometric stiffness parameter

h Step size
H Horizontal reaction.
Hb Horizontal reaction at B
Ha Horizontal reaction at A

. Hw , H p Horizontal compression due to dead load and live load, respectively

L Span length of the arch

M Bending moment

Md Bending moment due to dead load which is taken by funicular shape of

arch

Mp Bending moment due to live load P

Mh Bending moment of simply supported beam at x along the bridge due

to supporting columns forces w i

N Number of segments

P Concentrated load

q Uniformly distributed load intensity

Q Shear forces

Ra Vertical Reaction at support A

Rb Vertical Reaction at support B

U Strain energy

wm Magnitude of column forces due to live load P

y Longitudinal position of the arch rib at cross-section x

Deflection of the stiffened girder and arch rib due to live load P

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 Steinman parameter

Stiffness ratio

k Stiffness matrix

m Mass matrix

^ Unknown mode shape of unit magnitude

Modal frequency

k Generalized bending stiffness

k G Generalized geometric stiffness

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