Parametric study of medium span bridges retrofitted with reinforced concrete jacketing

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (7) ◽  
pp. 567-580
Author(s):  
J.M. Jara ◽  
O. Montes ◽  
B.A. Olmos ◽  
G. Martínez

Most reinforced concrete (RC) bridges in many countries are medium-span length structures built in the last decades and designed for very low seismic forces. The evolution of seismic codes and the average age of the bridges require the evaluation of their seismic vulnerability. This study assesses the expected capacity, demand and damage of seismically deficient medium-length highway bridges, supported in frame-type piers using dynamic nonlinear methodologies. A parametric study of reinforced concrete retrofitted bridges with RC jacketing was conducted. The non-retrofitted structures are 30 m span simple supported bridges with pier heights in the range of 5–25 m. The main emphasis of the study is the assessment of the jacket parameters’ contribution to the seismic vulnerability of bridges. Particularly, it is quantified how jacket thickness and reinforcement ratio affect the probability of reaching a particular damage limit state. The retrofitted scheme includes three jacket thicknesses and three different longitudinal steel ratios. The results evaluate bridge demands and fragility curves to quantify the influence of RC jacketing on the seismic response of structures and allow to select the best jacket parameters that improve the expected seismic behavior of the bridge models. Additionally, the influence of model hysteresis degradation on the expected damage of retrofitted bridges was also determined.

2002 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayman A. Shama ◽  
John B. Mander ◽  
Blaise A. Blabac ◽  
Stuart S. Chen

The main objective of this study is to assess the seismic vulnerability of a class of highway bridges existing in certain regions of the eastern and central states, where steel H-piles extends out of the soil to support the pier cap. During severe ground motions, the overall performance of the bridge will be governed by the local performance of the pile-to-cap beam connection. The scope of work was divided into several tasks as follows: (1) a theory was developed to predict the performance of the connection under lateral loading; (2) an initial experimental program was conducted to investigate the seismic behavior of the steel bents; (3) a retrofit strategy is proposed; (4) a second experimental study was carried out to validate the proposed retrofit method; and (5) fragility curves for such structures were developed. This paper deals with the first two tasks of the study. The other three tasks are the subject of a second companion paper (Shama 2002).


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amr Ghanem ◽  
Do-Soo Moon ◽  
Young Joo Lee

Skewed bridges are commonly used in highway interchanges where the straight (unskewed) bridges are not suitable. There have been several observations of heavy damage of bridges that have geometric irregularities, especially significant skewness. Such damage severely disrupts transportation systems, leading to substantial economic consequences. Skewed bridges are often inevitable due to the complexity and lack of orthogonality of transportation networks; hence better quantification of the effects of skewness on the bridge performance is a more viable approach than avoiding skewed bridges. This research focuses on the seismic vulnerability analysis of skewed reinforced concrete (RC) bridges. From the straight to highly skewed, various bridge models are created based on design example No. 4 prepared by the US Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). A set of earthquake ground motion records is carefully selected to impose consistent seismic demands on bridges. The fragility relationships for all bridge configurations are derived from the non-linear dynamic response history analysis. A new structural reliability method is utilized to handle the computational challenge in deriving fragility curves, which incorporates the structural analysis and reliability analysis to calculate the failure probability efficiently and accurately with the first-order reliability method (FORM). An attempt is made to parameterize the problem based on the skew angle. It is shown that the skew angle has a direct effect on the seismic vulnerability of RC bridges. The results reported will be helpful for new designs of skew RC bridges.


Author(s):  
A. Sandoli ◽  
G. P. Lignola ◽  
B. Calderoni ◽  
A. Prota

AbstractA hybrid seismic fragility model for territorial-scale seismic vulnerability assessment of masonry buildings is developed and presented in this paper. The method combines expert-judgment and mechanical approaches to derive typological fragility curves for Italian residential masonry building stock. The first classifies Italian masonry buildings in five different typological classes as function of age of construction, structural typology, and seismic behaviour and damaging of buildings observed following the most severe earthquakes occurred in Italy. The second, based on numerical analyses results conducted on building prototypes, provides all the parameters necessary for developing fragility functions. Peak-Ground Acceleration (PGA) at Ultimate Limit State attainable by each building’s class has been chosen as an Intensity Measure to represent fragility curves: three types of curve have been developed, each referred to mean, maximum and minimum value of PGAs defined for each building class. To represent the expected damage scenario for increasing earthquake intensities, a correlation between PGAs and Mercalli-Cancani-Sieber macroseismic intensity scale has been used and the corresponding fragility curves developed. Results show that the proposed building’s classes are representative of the Italian masonry building stock and that fragility curves are effective for predicting both seismic vulnerability and expected damage scenarios for seismic-prone areas. Finally, the fragility curves have been compared with empirical curves obtained through a macroseismic approach on Italian masonry buildings available in literature, underlining the differences between the methods.


2017 ◽  
Vol 139 ◽  
pp. 59-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qiang Han ◽  
Yulong Zhou ◽  
Yuchen Ou ◽  
Xiuli Du

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Sandoli ◽  
Gian Piero Lignola ◽  
Bruno Calderoni ◽  
Andrea Prota

Abstract A hybrid seismic fragility model for territorial-scale seismic vulnerability assessment of masonry buildings is developed and presented in this paper. The method combines expert-judgment and mechanical approaches to derive typological fragility curves for Italian residential masonry building stock. The first classifies Italian masonry buildings in five different typological classes as function of age of construction, structural typology, and seismic behaviour and damaging of buildings observed following the most severe earthquakes occurred in Italy. The second, based on numerical analyses results conducted on building prototypes, provides all the parameters necessary for developing fragility functions.Peak-Ground Acceleration (PGA) at Ultimate Limit State attainable by each building’s class has been chosen as an Intensity Measure (IM) to represent fragility curves: three types of curve have been developed, each referred to mean, maximum and minim value of PGAs defined for each buildings class.To represent the expected damage scenario for increasing earthquake intensities, a correlation between PGAs and Mercalli-Cancani-Sieber (MCS) macroseismic intensity scale has been used and the corresponding fragility curves developed.Results show that the proposed building’s classes are representative of the Italian masonry building stock and that fragility curves are effective for predicting both seismic vulnerability and expected damage scenarios for seismic-prone areas. Finally, the fragility curves have been compared with empirical curves obtained through a macroseismic approach on Italian masonry buildings available in literature, underlining the differences between the methods.


2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.H.M. Muntasir Billah ◽  
M. Shahria Alam

Fragility curve is an effective tool for identifying the potential seismic risk and consequences during and after an earthquake. Recent seismic events have shown that bridges are highly sensitive and vulnerable during earthquakes. There has been limited research to evaluate the seismic vulnerability of the existing bridges in British Columbia (BC), which could help in the decision-making process for seismic upgrade. This study focuses on developing seismic fragility curves for typical multi-span continuous concrete girder bridges in BC. Ground motions compatible with the seismic hazard were used as input excitations for vulnerability assessment. Uncertainties in material and geometric properties were considered to represent the bridges with similar structural characteristics and construction period. The fragility of the bridge is largely attributable to the fragilities of the columns, and to a lesser extent, the abutment and bearing components. The results of this study show that, although not very significant, the soil–structure interaction has some effect on the component fragility where this effect is not very significant at the bridge system level.


2018 ◽  
Vol 149 ◽  
pp. 02043
Author(s):  
Hasnae Boubel ◽  
Oumnia Elmrabet ◽  
Mohamed Rougui ◽  
Ouadia Mouhat ◽  
Echebba EL Mehdi

Considering in this work, a simplified methodology was proposed in order to evaluate seismic vulnerability of Reinforced Concrete Bridge. Reliability assessment of stress limits state and the applied loading which are assumed to be random variables. It is assumed that only their means and standard deviations are known while no information is available about their densities of probabilities. First Order Reliability Method is applied to a response surface representation of the stress limit state obtained through quadratic polynomial regression of finite element results. Then a parametric study is performed regarding the influence of the distributions of probabilities chosen to model the problem uncertainties for Reinforced Concrete Bridge. It is shown that the probability of failure depends largely on the chosen densities of probabilities, mainly in the useful domain of small failure probabilities.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (9) ◽  
pp. 57-68
Author(s):  
Durga Mibang ◽  
Satyabrata Choudhury

Assessment of the seismic vulnerability of frame-shear wall buildings can be performed by non-linear dynamic analysis and it needs detailed analytical modeling, structural performance measures and various earthquake intensities. The codal based design method can hardly be used for designing buildings of pre-defined target objectives whereas the Unified performance-based design (UPBD) method can be designed for buildings of pre-defined target objectives. In the current study, the UPBD method for frame-shear wall buildings has been applied for different performance levels (PL) i.e. Immediate occupancy (IO), Life safety (LS) and Collapse prevention (CP) with 1%, 2% and 3% drift in both the directions of the buildings. The nonlinear dynamic analysis of the reinforced concrete (RC) frame-shear wall buildings is performed considering spectrum compatible ground motions (SCGM) as per EC-8 demand spectrum at 0.45g level and type B soil condition. Vulnerability assessment of the frame-shear wall buildings is conducted by generating fragility curves and the probability failure of structure is checked based on different configurations and damage limit states of the structure. Finally, the outcome of the work gives a proper idea of the nonlinear behavior of the dual system so that optimum design could be acquired for achieving higher safety aspects.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document