Evaluation of Seismic Performance and Fatigue of Orthotropic Steel Bridges

Alireza Rahai, Saman Hedjazi

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Bridges are utilized as vital arteries for urban and intercity transportation systems. In our country, Iran, there are several bridges, that seem weak against the existing live loads. These bridges are resistant from static point of view, but their partial and overall seismic performance should be interrogated and after determination of vulnerable points, a suitable retrofitting scheme should be presented.

The purpose of the present study is to carry out the above-mentioned task for a specific model of existing bridges. The studied case is an orthotropic steel bridge. At first, seismic vulnerabilities of steel bridge during past earthquakes and recommended appropriate methods of retrofitting were studied.

In order to render a performance assessment of the bridge, a nonlinear pushover analysis was done. The nonlinear response of the bridge was investigated from the first pier hinging to the inelastic equilibrium condition during the design level earthquake (DLE) and then to the ultimate limit state (ULS). During the yielding process and reduction of the bridge structure's stiffness, its influence on the period lengthening and effective viscous damping was specified.
Original languageAmerican English
JournalJournal of Transportation Research - Iran
Volume2
StatePublished - 2005

Disciplines

  • Engineering
  • Civil and Environmental Engineering
  • Construction Engineering and Management

Keywords

  • Excess load analysis
  • External prestressing
  • Fatigue
  • Orthotropic deck
  • Performance evaluation

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