Development of fragility curves for RC bridges subjected to reverse and strike-slip seismic sources

This paper presents a probabilistic fragility analysis for two groups of bridges: simply supported and integral bridges. Comparisons are based on the seismic fragility of the bridges subjected to accelerograms of two seismic sources. Three-dimensional finite-element models of the bridges were created for each set of bridge samples, considering the nonlinear behaviour of critical bridge components. When the seismic hazard in the site is controlled by a few seismic sources, it is important to quantify separately the contribution of each fault to the structure vulnerability. In this study, seismic records come from earthquakes that originated in strike-slip and reverse faulting mechanisms. The influence of the earthquake mechanism on the seismic vulnerability of the bridges was analysed by considering the displacement ductility of the piers. An in-depth parametric study was conducted to evaluate the sensitivity of the bridges' seismic responses to variations of structural parameters. The analysis showed that uncertainties related to the presence of lap splices in columns and superstructure type in terms of integral or simply supported spans should be considered in the fragility analysis of the bridge system. Finally, the fragility curves determine the conditional probabilities that a specific structural demand will reach or exceed the structural capacity by considering peak ground acceleration (PGA) and acceleration spectrum intensity (ASI). The results also show that the simply supported bridges perform consistently better from a seismic perspective than integral bridges and focal mechanism of the earthquakes plays an important role in the seismic fragility analysis of highway bridges.