Effects of Frequency Content of Earthquake Ground Motions on Probabilistic Seismic Demand Assessment of Long-Span Bridge Structures

Abstract

Earthquake ground motions were reasonally selected for the nonlinear dynamic time-history analysis conducted for a two-tower long-span cable-stayed bridge. The correlation between frequency content of earthquake ground motions and probabilistic seismic demands reveals that the geometric mean and dispersion of response spectra from earthquake ground motions have significant effects on probabilistic seismic demand assessment of long-span bridge stuctures and these effects are related to the difference of the shape of geometric mean spectra in the important period ranges where cumulative modal mass participation is significant. Response spectra of selected earthquake ground motions should match well with target spectra in the important period ranges. If input ground motions are reasonally selected, analytic results can be obtained more precisely and effectively and more amplitude parameters can be selected as intensity measures.