Seismic fragility analysis of clay-pile-pier systems considering the optimization of ground motion intensity measures

The performance of clay-pile-pier system under earthquake shaking was comprehensively examined via three-dimensional finite element analyses,in which the complex stress-strain relationships of a clay and piled pier system were depicted by a hyperbolic-hysteretic and an equivalent elastoplastic model,respectively.One hundred twenty ground motions with varying peak accelerations were considered,along with the variations in bridge superstructure mass and pile flexural rigidity.Comprehensive comparison studies suggested that peak pile-cap acceleration and peak pile-cap velocity are the optimal ground motion intensity measures for seismic responses of the pier and the pile,respectively.Furthermore,based on two optimal ground motion intensity measures and using curvature ductility to quantify different damage states,seismic fragility analyses were performed.The pier generally had no evident damage except when the bridge girder mass was equal to 960 t,which seemed to be comparatively insensitive to the varying pile flexural rigidity.In comparison,the pile was found to be more vulnerable to seismic damage and its failure probabilities tended to clearly reduce with the increment of pile flexural rigidity,while the influence of the bridge girder mass was relatively minor.

Time-varying seismic fragility analysis of durability damage of high-tensile reinforcement ECC bridge pier

The deterioration of the performance of offshore bridges is particularly prominent due to the complex natural environment,including the coupling effects of earthquake and seawater erosion.In particular,bridge piers are the main energy-consuming and load-bearing components,so that excellent seismic capacity of bridge piers is the key to avoiding bridge damage.Although earthquake resistant behavior of ordinary reinforced concrete bridge piers(ordinary pier)can be improved by increasing the section size and reinforcement ratio of piers,the improvement of the earthquake resistant behavior is limited.To further improve the earthquake resistant behavior of bridge piers,high-tensile reinforcement engineered cementitious composite(ECC)bridge piers are utilized and time-varying seismic fragility analysis are conducted in this study.The refined model of a bridge pier is built by OpenSees.First,the influence of ECC replacement height on pier curvature is analyzed to determine the reasonable ECC height.Then,the time-varying fragility analysis of high-tensile reinforcement ECC piers(ECC composite piers)with durability damage are evaluated considering the time-varying law of materials.Four damage states,slight damage,moderate damage,extensive damage and complete collapse,are utilized in the study.These fragility curves indicate the durability damage can debase the earthquake resistant behavior of piers continually,the exceedance probability of the same state of destruction increases with the increase of peak ground acceleration(PGA)and service time of pier.The results also indicate that the corrosion level of chloride ion to pier is small during the early service period,and the bridge pier vulnerable curve is similar to that of the new bridge pier.As the level of chlorine ion corrosion deepens,transcendental probability is increased.Compared with the ordinary pier,the exceedance probability in each limit state of ECC composite piers is significantly reduced.The proposed ECC composite pies leads to better realistic time-varying earthquake resistant behavior.

Comparison of seismic fragility analysis methods for arch dams

This study focuses on the seismic fragility analysis of arch dams.The multiple stripe analysis(MSA),cloud analysis(CLA),and incremental dynamic analysis(IDA)methods are compared.A comprehensive dam-reservoir-foundation rock system,which considers the opening of contraction joints,the nonlinearity of dam concrete and foundation rock,the radiation damping effect of semi-unbounded foundation,and the compressibility of reservoir water,is used as a numerical example.225,80,and 15 earthquake records are selected for MSA,CLA,and IDA,respectively.The results show that MSA provides satisfactory fragility analysis,while both CLA and IDA have assumptions that may lead to deviations.Therefore,MSA is the most reliable method among the three methods and is recommended for the fragility analysis of arch dams.It is also shown that the choice of demand level affects the reliability of fragility curves and the effect of the material uncertainty on the fragility of the dam is not significant.

Seismic fragility of structures isolated by single concave sliding devices for different soil conditions

This study deals with the seismic fragility of elastic structural systems equipped with single concave sliding（friction pendulum system（FPS）） isolators considering different soil conditions. The behavior of these systems is analyzed by employing a two-degree-of-freedom model, whereas the FPS response is described by means of a velocity-dependent model. The uncertainty in the seismic inputs is taken into account by considering artificial seismic excitations modelled as timemodulated filtered Gaussian white noise random processes of different intensity within the power spectral density method. In particular, the filter parameters, which control the frequency content of the random excitations, are calibrated to describe stiff, medium and soft soil conditions. The sliding friction coefficient at large velocity is also considered as a random variable modelled through a uniform probability density function. Incremental dynamic analyses are developed in order to evaluate the probabilities of exceeding different limit states related to both the reinforced concrete（RC） superstructure and isolation level, defining the seismic fragility curves within an extensive parametric study carried out for different structural system properties and soil conditions. The abovementioned seismic fragility curves are useful to evaluate the seismic reliability of base-isolated elastic systems equipped with FPS and located in any site for any soil condition.

Seismic fragility analysis of bridges by relevance vector machine based demand prediction model

A relevance vector machine(RVM)based demand prediction model is explored for efficient seismic fragility analysis(SFA)of a bridge structure.The proposed RVM model integrates both record-to-record variations of ground motions and uncertainties of parameters characterizing the bridge model.For efficient fragility computation,ground motion intensity is included as an added dimension to the demand prediction model.To incorporate different sources of uncertainty,random realizations of different structural parameters are generated using Latin hypercube sampling technique.Mean fragility,along with its dispersions,is estimated based on the log-normal fragility model for different critical components of a bridge.The effectiveness of the proposed RVM model-based SFA of a bridge structure is elucidated numerically by comparing it with fragility results obtained by the commonly used SFA approaches,while considering the most accurate direct Monte Carlo simulation-based fragility estimates as the benchmark.The proposed RVM model provides a more accurate estimate of fragility than conventional approaches,with significantly less computational effort.In addition,the proposed model provides a measure of uncertainty in fragility estimates by constructing confidence intervals for the fragility curves.

Seismic performance evaluation of water supply pipes installed in a full-scale RC frame structure based on a shaking table test

As an important part of nonstructural components,the seismic response of indoor water supply pipes deserves much attention.This paper presents shaking table test research on water supply pipes installed in a full-scale reinforced concrete(RC)frame structure.Different material pipes and different methods for penetrating the reinforced concrete floors are combined to evaluate the difference in seismic performance.Floor response spectra and pipe acceleration amplification factors based on test data are discussed and compared with code provisions.A seismic fragility study of displacement demand is conducted based on numerical simulation.The acceleration response and displacement response of different combinations are compared.The results show that the combination of different pipe materials and different passing-through methods can cause obvious differences in the seismic response of indoor riser pipes.

Seismic fragility assessment of load‐bearing soft‐brick unreinforced masonry piers

Unreinforced masonry(URM)made with soft bricks comprises a large percentage of the building stock in devel-oping countries.However,the poor performance of URM piers during earthquakes has led to renewed interest in understanding their behavior under lateral loads.Little experimental data is available on the seismic response,analysis,and design of URMs made of soft bricks.In this study,the micro-modeling technique is used to simulate the in-plane behavior of load-bearing,soft-brick URM piers.The parameters required in the constitutive models are obtained from material tests and used to develop a calibrated numerical model of the URM piers.Piers with various aspect ratios subjected to various axial stresses are numerically modeled to obtain monotonic and cyclic responses,and their critical displacement limit states are identified.Changes in the failure modes of masonry piers with variations in the aspect ratio and axial stress are established.Load-bearing piers exhibit three distinct failure modes:bed sliding,diagonal shear cracking,and flexure,depending on the aspect ratio and axial stress.The seismic fragility of each pier failure type is examined using nonlinear time history analyses.The results show that bed-sliding piers collapse at extremely low PGA levels.Piers failing through diagonal shear cracking also fail at low PGA levels.Flexural piers can resist seismic forces up to a slightly higher PGA level and thus are the last to collapse.The results also indicate that the effect of uncertainty in ground motions is more significant than the effect of variability in the masonry pier capacities.

Seismic resilience assessment of corroded reinforced concrete structures designed to the Chinese codes

The natural landscape in China exposes many existing RC buildings to aggressive environments.Such exposure can lead to deterioration in structural performance with regard to resisting events such as earthquakes.Corrosion of embedded reinforcement is one of the most common mechanisms by which such structural degradation occurs.There has been increasing attention in recent years toward seismic resilience in communities and their constituent construction;however,to date,studies have neglected the effect of natural aging.This study aims to examine the effect of reinforcement corrosion on the seismic resilience of RC frames that are designed according to Chinese seismic design codes.A total of twenty RC frames are used to represent design and construction that is typical of coastal China,with consideration given to various seismic fortification levels and elevation arrangements.Seismic fragility relationships are developed for case frames under varying levels of reinforcement corrosion,i.e.,corrosion rates are increased from 5%to 15%.Subsequently,the seismic resilience levels of uncorroded and corroded RC frames are compared using a normalized loss factor.It was found that the loss of resilience of the corroded frames is greater than that of their uncorroded counterparts.At the Rare Earthquake hazard level,the corrosioninduced increase in loss of resilience can be more than 200%,showing the significant effect of reinforcement corrosion on structural resilience under the influence of earthquakes.

Seismic performance evaluation of large-span offshore cable-stayed bridges under non-uniform earthquake excitations including strain rate effect

This paper presents a novel and precise seismic performance evaluation method for large-span offshore cable-stayed(LSOCS)bridge by considering the strain rate effect of RC materials and the spatial variation effect of seafloor seismic motions. Threedimensional finite element(FE) model of a LSOCS bridge located in the southeast coast of China is constructed in the ABAQUS platform. The non-uniform ground motions at the offshore site beneath the bridge are stochastically simulated and used as seismic inputs. Moreover, a subroutine for considering the rate-dependent properties of RC materials in a fiber-based beamcolumn element model is developed to account for the strain rate effect of RC materials in the nonlinear time-history analysis.The numerical results indicate that seismic responses and fragilities of the LSOCS bridge are both considerably affected by the non-uniform seafloor seismic motions and strain rate effect. The seismic performance evaluation approach presented in this paper can provide vital support for earthquake resistant design of LSOCS bridges.