Abstract
The seismic responses of continuous multi-span reinforced concrete (RC) bridges were predicted using inelastic time history analyses (ITHA) and incremental dynamic analysis (IDA). Some important issues in ITHA were studied in this research, including: the effects of using artificial and natural records on predictions of the mean seismic demands, effects of displacement directions on predictions of the mean seismic response, the use of 2D analysis with combination rules for prediction of the response obtained using 3D analysis, and prediction of the maximum radial displacement demands compared to the displacements obtained along the principal axes of the bridges. In addition, IDA was conducted and predictions were obtained at different damage states. These issues were investigated for the case of regular and irregular bridges using three different sets of natural and artificial records. The results indicated that the use of natural and artificial records typically resulted in similar predictions for the cases studied. The effect of displacement direction was important in predicting the mean seismic response. It was shown that 2D analyses with the combination rules resulted in good predictions of the radial displacement demands obtained from 3D analyses. The use of artificial records in IDA resulted in good prediction of the median collapse capacity.
Highlights
Non-linear structural analysis is used to predict the maximum deformation and corresponding structural damage for performance-based assessments
Limited research is available to investigate the influence of using different types of synthetic ground motion records on the seismic response predictions of structures, for bridges
That the results of this study are limited to the cases considered and general conclusions may not be made without further research
Summary
Non-linear structural analysis is used to predict the maximum deformation and corresponding structural damage for performance-based assessments. In design it is typically assumed that the seismic response of straight bridges is independent in the two orthogonal directions and, as a result, the seismic responses in the two directions can be predicted using 2D analysis with the horizontal components of the ground motion records applied separately in the transverse and the longitudinal directions (e.g., [7]) Another important issue that needs further study is the use of different methods to predict the mean values of seismic demands when structural models are subjected to a number of ground motion records. The displacement envelopes in different radial directions are predicted and compared for the natural and artificial record sets considered in this research. To further investigate this issue the radial displacements (i.e., the real maximum displacement that occurs in a random direction) of the bridge columns were predicted and compared for different record sets, in addition to the displacements in the longitudinal and transverse directions.
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