Assessment of an old roadway bridge under static and seismic loading conditions

Abstract

A large proportion of road and railway bridges, present in Turkey served for many years, have been completed their service life or will soon. Continuing safety and sustainability of these bridges under traffic loads have been of great increasing importance to roadway and railway transportation line to be continuous servicing. In addition, the demolition and reconstruction of bridges that have reached the end of their service life or are nearing completion will have a negative impact on the country's economy. All of these requirements' detailed examination of bridges in order to provide economical and safe service, considering current vehicle loads and earthquake loads. The Mahmutçavuş Bridge is investigated as a simply supported continuous composite roadway bridge at this work. The finite-element model of the bridge is constituted by site investigation and measurement. Different truckloads using for the design of the bridge are determined, and static analysis of the bridge is conducted. Seven earthquake records are scaled for two different earthquake design spectrums. The nonlinear time-history analyses are conducted, considering Δ-δ effects. The performance of the bridge for varying truckloads and earthquake loads is investigated, and results are discussed in detail.