Seismic fragility assessment of highway bridges: a state-of-the-art review

Abstract

Safety and serviceability of highway bridges, during and after an earthquake, is a prerequisite to ensure continuous transport facilities, emergency and evacuation routes. Recently, fragility curves have emerged as important decision support tools to identify the potential seismic risk and consequences during and after an earthquake. There has been a substantial increase in interest among researchers in the topic of seismic fragility assessment of highway bridges as evidenced by the growing number of published literature. Advanced computational techniques and available resources have led to the development of different methodologies for fragility assessment. This study presents a review of the different methodologies developed for seismic fragility assessment of highway bridges along with their features, limitations and applications. This study presents a review of available methodologies and identifies opportunities for future development. This study mainly focuses on the key features of different methods and applications rather than penetrating down to a critique of the associated analysis procedure or mathematical framework. It synthesises the existing information on fragility analysis, presents it in concise and useful tables, and explains different applications for different purposes, which would motivate decision-makers and stake holders to extend the application of fragility curves for more informed decision-making.

Keywords::

• bridges
• seismic fragility
• decision-making
• ground motion
• intensity measures

Notes

^1. Email: [email protected]

Additional information

Funding

The financial contributions of Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and S-Frame Software Inc. through Collaborative Research & Development (CRD) Grant were critical to conduct this study and are gratefully acknowledged.