• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.3 no.5
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• pp.649-673
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• 2012

Recent studies have highlighted the importance of accounting for aging and deterioration of bridges when estimating their seismic vulnerability. Effects of structural degradation of multiple bridge components, variations in bridge geometry, and comparison of different environmental exposure conditions have traditionally been ignored in the development of seismic fragility curves for aging concrete highway bridges. This study focuses on the degradation of multiple bridge components of a geometrically varying bridge class, as opposed to a single bridge sample, to arrive at time-dependent seismic bridge fragility curves. The effects of different exposure conditions are also explored to assess the impact of severity of the environment on bridge seismic vulnerability. The proposed methodology is demonstrated on a representative class of aging multi-span reinforced concrete girder bridges typical of the Central and Southeastern United States. The results reveal the importance of considering multiple deterioration mechanisms, including the significance of degrading elastomeric bearings along with the corroding reinforced concrete columns, in fragility modeling of aging bridge classes. Additionally, assessment of the relative severity of exposure to marine atmospheric, marine sea-splash and deicing salts, and shows 5%, 9% and 44% reduction, respectively, in the median value bridge fragility for the complete damage state relative to the as-built pristine structure.

• International Journal of Safety
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.22-31
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• 2011

Seismic response control method of the bridge structures with semi-active control device, i.e., magneto-rheological (MR) damper, is studied in this paper. Design of various kinds of clipped optimal controller and fuzzy controller are suggested as a semi-active control algorithm. For determining the control force of MR damper, clipped optimal control method adopts bi-state approach, but the fuzzy control method continuously quantifies input currents through fuzzy inference mechanism to finely modulate the damper force. To investigate the performances of the suggested control techniques, numerical simulations of a multi-span continuous bridge system subjected to various earthquakes are performed, and their performances are compared with each other. From the comparison of results, it is shown that the fuzzy control system can provide well-balanced control force between girder and pier in the view point of structural safety and stability and be quite effective in reducing both girder and pier displacements over the existing control method.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2003.03a
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• pp.409-414
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• 2003

A multi-span bridge model that is fixed in longitudinal direction at a single pier can be very vulnerable to the earthquake ground motion in longitudinal direction. If the seismic load exceeds the capacity of the pier, it can be severely damaged. However, such incident can be prevented if piers of movable support share the seismic load as setting up seismic load transmitting device. This study is performed to investigate seismic performance of continuous bridge model with seismic load transmitting devices which is proposed newly. It is found that continuous bridge model system with device is more effective about displacement control and seismic performance.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.191-205
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• 2023

In this paper, through operational modal analysis and ambient vibration tests, the dynamic characteristics of a multi-span simply-supported reinforced concrete highway bridge deck was determined and the results were used to assess the quality of construction of the individual spans. Supporting finite element (FE) models were created and analyzed according to the design drawings. After carrying out the dynamic tests and extracting the modal properties of the deck, the quality of construction was relatively assessed by comparing the results obtained from all the tests from the individual spans and the FE results. A comparison of the test results among the different spans showed a maximum difference value of around 9.3 percent between the superstructure's natural frequencies. These minor differences besides the obtained values of modal damping ratios, in which the differences were not more than 5 percent, can be resulted from suitable performance, health, and acceptable construction quality of the bridge.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.69 no.2
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• pp.177-191
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• 2019

The local topography has a significant effect on the characteristics of seismic ground motion. This paper investigates the influence of topographic effects on the seismic response of a train-bridge system. A 3-D finite element model with local absorbing boundary conditions is established for the local site. The time histories of seismic ground motion are converted into equivalent loads on the artificial boundary, to obtain the seismic input at the bridge supports. The analysis of the train-bridge system subjected to multi-support seismic excitations is performed, by applying the displacement time histories of the seismic ground motion to the bridge supports. In a case study considering a bridge with a span of 466 m crossing a valley, the seismic response of the train-bridge system is analyzed. The results show that the local topography and the incident angle of seismic waves have a significant effect on the seismic response of the train-bridge system. Leaving these effects out of consideration may lead to unsafe analysis results.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.337-362
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• 2015

This paper presents a feasibility study on structural damage alarming and localization of long-span cable-supported bridges using multi-novelty indices formulated by monitoring-derived modal parameters. The proposed method which requires neither structural model nor damage model is applicable to structures of arbitrary complexity. With the intention to enhance the tolerance to measurement noise/uncertainty and the sensitivity to structural damage, an improved novelty index is formulated in terms of auto-associative neural networks (ANNs) where the output vector is designated to differ from the input vector while the training of the ANNs needs only the measured modal properties of the intact structure under in-service conditions. After validating the enhanced capability of the improved novelty index for structural damage alarming over the commonly configured novelty index, the performance of the improved novelty index for damage occurrence detection of large-scale bridges is examined through numerical simulation studies of the suspension Tsing Ma Bridge (TMB) and the cable-stayed Ting Kau Bridge (TKB) incurred with different types of structural damage. Then the improved novelty index is extended to formulate multi-novelty indices in terms of the measured modal frequencies and incomplete modeshape components for damage region identification. The capability of the formulated multi-novelty indices for damage region identification is also examined through numerical simulations of the TMB and TKB.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.49-60
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• 2014

For simple and accurate analysis for behaviors of multi-span suspension bridges which are expected to be frequently constructed as strait-crossing bridges, the deflection theory as the peculiar theory of a suspension bridge can be applied. This paper performs a structural analysis for four-span suspension bridges using the deflection theory. Simply-supported beams with tension are used for girders and the deflections of the beams due to the vertical loads and moments at supports are calculated. The calculation is performed iteratively until the deflections satisfy the compatibility equations of cables. The results of the deflection theory analysis considering tower rigidity are compared with those of the finite element analysis for verification. Importance of the tower rigidity for four-span suspension bridges is confirmed using various compatibility equations of the cable due to variation of the constraint conditions between main cable and top of towers. In addition, the simple parametric analysis for variation of the center tower rigidity is performed.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.339-354
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• 2006

Hangzhou Bay Bridge spans the Hangzhou Bay and is located at Zhejiang province in the southeast seacoast of China. The total length of the bridge is 36 km. The bridge is composed of bridge approaches made up of multi-span prestressed concrete box girders and two cable-stayed bridges over the north and south navigable spans respectively. The seismic response analysis of the bridge model shows that if the navigable spans are designed as the routine earthquake-resistance system, the displacements and internal forces in pylons, piers and deckes are too large to satisfy the anti-seismic requirement of the structure. Therefore, the seismic reduction design was carried out by using viscous dampers to dissipate the kinetic energy of the structure both longitudinally and transversely. Using the vibration reduction system and aiming at the reasonable optimal goal, the purpose to reduce the seismic responses in south and north navigable spans has been achieved.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.305-321
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• 2022

Bridge structural health monitoring with the aim of continuously assessing structural safety and reliability represents a topic of major importance for worldwide infrastructure managers. In the last two decades, due to their potential economic and operational advantages, drive-by approaches experienced growing consideration from researcher and engineers. This work addresses two technical topics regarding indirect frequency estimation methods: bridge and vehicle dynamics overlapping, and bridge expansion joints impact. The experimental campaign was conducted on a mixed multi-span bridge located in Lombardy using a Ford Galaxy instrumented with a mesh of wireless accelerometers. The onboard time series were acquired for a number of 10 passages over the bridge,performed at a travelling speed of 30 km/h, with no limitations imposed to traffic. Exploiting an ad-hoc sensors positioning, pitch vehicle motion was compensated, allowing to estimate the first two bridge bending frequencies from PSD functions; moreover, the herein adopted approach proved to be insensitive to joints disturbance. Conclusively, a sensitivity study has been conducted to trace the relationship between estimation accuracy and number of trips considered in the analysis. Promising results were found, pointing out a clear positive correlation especially for the first bending frequency.

• Computational Structural Engineering
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.233-240
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• 1997

The study presents the linear dynamic analysis of multi-girder steel bridges under vehicular movement to examine the performance characteristics due to the various structural and loading conditions. The road surface roughness and bridge-vehicle interactions are considered. The road surface profiles for the approaching roadway and bridge decks are generated from power spectral density functions for different road roughness conditions. A new filtering method using the wheel trace is proposed to obtain the more rational bridge-vehicle interactions from the randomly generated road surface. The possible settlement condition between the bridge deck and approaching roadway is also included. The dynamic responses of various bridges designed according to current design practice are examined, in which important structural parameters(such as span length, girder spacing, etc.) are considered systematically. In addition to the basic loading conditions due to a single truck passing on the bridge, the traffic conditions of multi-truck traveling either consecutively on the same lane or side-by-side on the adjacent lanes are also evaluated.