Review on the Research of Highway Bridges Seismic Damage Assessment

Abstract

Highway bridges played an important role in lifeline systems. Their seismic damage status made a direct influence on the implement plan of the earthquake relief work and the life and property security of the people. Therefore, accurate assessment and prediction for the seismic damage of highway bridges were of vital significance, based on which reasonable earthquake fortification could be implemented. This paper summarized and classified the existing seismic damage assessment methods for highway bridges, including certain index evaluation methods based on statistical results, vulnerability index evaluation methods based on probability theory and vulnerability index evaluation methods based on aggregation model. Then the capacity-spectrum method which could be used for calculating the fragility curve and the seismic assessment model of highway bridges used in HAZUS were specially explained. At last, the proposal for the development of seismic assessment systems related with highway bridges in China was put forward. Considering HAZUS’s good performance in seismic assessment, a similar assessment system should be built in China as soon as possible. The first step should be classifying highway bridges in China based on their current situation and obtaining their seismic assessment model parameters roughly, which tend to be safe. The second step should be carrying out sufficient experiments and numerical analysis and revising the model parameters obtained in the first step.