Seismic Fragility Analysis for Typical Multi-Span Simply Supported Railway Box Girder Bridges

Abstract

Fragility curves for typical multi-span simply supported concrete box girder bridges in eastern China are presented. A set of bridge samples, of which five uncertain parameters are considered, is established using the Latin hypercube sampling. Nonlinear time history analyses are conducted to capture the structural response quantities. Probabilistic seismic demand models are formulated by quadratic regression analysis for the capacity/demand ratios. Fragility curves of bridge components are developed and the fragility of bridge system is evaluated using the first-order bound method. The results show that the columns and expansion bearings among bridge members are more fragile under earthquake excitation, and the bridge system is more fragile than any bridge component. The typical bridges have more than 50% probability when subjected to PGAs of 0.46, 0.58, 0.82, and 1.0g for four damage states, respectively. The fragility curves can be used for retrofit prioritization for this type of bridges.