ABSTRACT
The design and construction of piers for overwater bridges present a series of demanding criteria. In service, the pier must be able to support dead and live loads successfully while resisting environmental forces such as current, wind, wave, sea ice, and unbalanced soil loads, sometimes even including downslope rockfall. Earthquake loadings present a major challenge to design, with cyclic reversing motions being propagated up through the soil and the pier to excite the superstructure. Accidental forces must also be resisted. Collision by barges and ships is becoming an increasingly serious hazard for bridge piers in waterways, For vessel collision design of bridge piers, see Chapter 4, Bridge Engineering Handbook, Second Edition: Substructure Design.
