A Set of Shaking Table Model Tests of Seismic Hydrodynamic Pressure on Bridge Pier with Submerged Depth

A set of shaking table model tests of hydrodynamic pressures on bridge piers are presented in this paper. Five models made of Perspex and concrete with rectangular, elliptical and variable sections are built, and fixed in a steel tank on shaking table with 0.9 m to 1.6 m water, respectively. The seismic hydrodynamic pressures observed at 4/7/8 submerged depths from two level inputs of ground motions and two direction combinations show that the representative values per unit area increase with submerged depth obviously, the increasing rate is generally faster than those by the two classical assumptions at shallow depth, but slower at deep depth.