Abstract
Most of the recent studies focus on the progressive collapse of ordinary structures due to gravity and blast loads. A few focus on studying progressive collapse due to seismic actions, especially of bridge structures. The past major earthquakes have shown that it is possible to develop improved earthquake-resistant design techniques for new bridges if the process of damage from initial failure to ultimate collapse and its effects on structural failure mechanisms could be analyzed and monitored. This paper presents a simulation and analysis of bridge progressive collapse behavior during seismic actions using the Applied Element Method (AEM) which can take into account the separation of structural components resulted from fracture failure and falling debris contact or impact forces. Simple, continuous, and monolithic bridges’ superstructures were numerically analyzed under the influence of the severe ground motions not considering the live loads. The parameters studied were the superstructure redundancy and the effect of severe ground motion such as Kobe, Chi-Chi, and Northridge ground motions on different bridge structural systems. The effect of reducing the reinforcement ratio on the collapse behavior of RC box girders and the variation of columns height were also studied. The results showed that monolithic bridge models with reduced reinforcement to the minimum reinforcement according to ECP 203/2018 showed a collapse behavior under the effect of severe seismic ground motions. However, changing the bridge structural system from monolithic to continuous or simple on bearing bridge models could prevent the bridge models from collapse.
Highlights
Progressive collapse phenomenon is defined as the global damage or collapse behavior of a large part of the structural system that is caused by a failure of a relatively small or localized part of the structure
Chi-Chi, and Northridge ground accelerations were used in the progressive collapse analysis of the bridge models, as there was some bridge collapse during these earthquakes [25]−[29]. e ground motions data was obtained from the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research (PEER), Strong Motion Database [30]
In model A3-M-K, it is noted that the monolithic bridge model collapsed by Kobe ground acceleration, while by analyzing the same bridge configuration it showed a partial collapse by Chi-Chi and Northridge ground accelerations, as in models A3-M-C and A3-M-N. us, the collapse of the structures did not depend on the largest value of the peak ground acceleration; yet it depended on the number of cyclic reversal accelerations
Summary
Progressive collapse phenomenon is defined as the global damage or collapse behavior of a large part of the structural system that is caused by a failure of a relatively small or localized part of the structure. E results have shown a significant influence on the performance of bridges during major earthquakes that were visible in its progressive collapse analysis. Tsuyagawa Bridge’s AEM analysis has shown the ability to simulate the 2011 Tohoku Tsunami collapse effectively, the analytical results showed less ductility when compared to reality. Ere are no sufficient studies on the effect of severe seismic ground motions for such different bridges’ structural systems; especially, most researchers studied bridges’ models, either continuous or simple bridges. Several bridges’ models with different structural systems such as simple on bearings, continuous on bearings, and monolithic with column bridges are analyzed under severe seismic ground motions: Kobe, Chi-Chi, and Northridge earthquakes. Recontact, or contact other elements automatically depending on the structural response (see Figure 2)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
