Performance-based seismic resilience and sustainability assessment of coastal RC bridges in aggressive marine environments

Abstract

Corrosion-induced deterioration of material properties can noticeably affect the seismic performance of coastal reinforced concrete (RC) bridges in aggressive marine environments, causing significant adverse economic and environmental consequences post extreme events. This study systematically investigates the time-dependent seismic performance, resilience, and sustainability of coastal RC bridges. For that purpose, a three-dimensional (3D) nonlinear finite element (FE) framework is developed and combined with the formulation of performance-based earthquake engineering (PBEE) and an economic input-output life cycle assessment (LCA) approach. Seismic resilience and robustness of the coastal RC bridges are subsequently evaluated in terms of the post-earthquake repair cost, repair time, and carbon footprint quantified by CO2. Within this framework, additional analyses are conducted to explore possible retrofit measures, including the use of fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) reinforcement on the sustainability and resilience of the retrofitted RC bridges. For the presented scenario, it is shown that wrapping bridge columns with FRP composites can effectively increase the moment capacity, thus improving resilience and sustainability by reducing as much as 650 Mg of CO2 for this specific bridge. Overall, the derived insights highlight the need for sustainability, resilience, and potential retrofit analysis of coastal RC bridges in seismically active regions affected by corrosion-induced deterioration.