Seismic vulnerability of continuous concrete bridges on different types of soil using fragility curves

Abstract

One of the common methods for estimation of structural failures and earthquake damages is using fragility curves with probabilistic methods. In these methods, a structure such as a bridge can be classified into several structural types in terms of number of spans, type of connections, material used for members, even type of soil, and so on. Also, the seismic load on the bridge can be considered with indicators such as peak ground acceleration (PGA) or spectral acceleration (SA). In this research, the number of span and soil type of concrete bridges with continuous deck have been investigated on the fragility curves. For this purpose, the two, three, and four span bridges were modeled in the finite element software. Then, the fragility curves of each condition were determined by probabilistic method and by performing nonlinear incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) for far field accelerograms and for four soil types of seismic design code of Iran. The results show that the soil type of the bridge site has a significant impact on the fragility curve, and the probability that the bridges will collapse will vary with the type of soil from type I to IV and damage increases as the number of bridge spans increases.

Keywords

• reinforced concrete bridge
• incremental nonlinear dynamic analysis
• failure criteria
• fragility curve
• impact of soil type