SEISMIC DUCTILITY OF MASONRY ARCH BRIDGES IN LONGITUDINAL DIRECTION

The vulnerability and evaluation of masonry arch bridges used in transportation networks has recently become a very important task for transportation engineers because of the key role they play in the transportation network. Most of the current research on masonry arch bridges focuses only on the behavior under service loads and the seismic vulnerability of these structures has received less attention in the literature. The presence of many historical masonry arch bridges located in seismically active regions only heightens the need for increased research on the topic. In this paper, unreinforced masonry arch bridges are modeled, using Nonlinear Finite Element Method (N.F.E.M). Cracking and crushing of masonry materials are considered in the model. The ductility of masonry arch bridges is evaluated by use of push over analysis. The main goal of this research is to estimate the ductility of masonry arch bridges in longitudinal direction.