A novel model is constructed to investigate the coupling effect of pulse period (T_p) and peak pulse velocity (V_p) on structural demands with the varied fundamental period (T₁) under pulse-like ground motions. The Gaussian function is proposed to quantitatively describe the bell-shape curve of column ductility demand in terms of ln(T₁/T_p). Further investigation reveals that the two critical parameters of Gaussian function, i.e. the height of the curve’s peak and the position of the center of the peak, are significantly influenced by V_p, and analytically illustrated by Power function and Boltzmann function, respectively. verification of the proposed two-dimensional structure-pulse coupling model exhibits its accuracy and feasibility in predicting the seismic demand conditioned on vector-valued intensity measure ([V_p, ln(T₁/T_p)]) under pulse-like ground motion. Moreover, the coupling model can be used to identify and quantify the response regularity, for instance, the phenomenon that the center position of the peak shifts from 1.0 to 0.5 by increasing V_p is analytically captured in this study. Lastly, the coupling model is also capable to identify the unfavorable range of structural parameters, which is quite practical for near-fault seismic design and risk assessment.

Although the knowledge and technology of performance-based earthquake engineering have rapidly advanced in the past several decades, current seismic design codes simply ignore the effect of aftershocks on the performance of structures. Thus, the present paper investigated the effect of aftershocks on seismic responses of multispan reinforced concrete (RC) bridges using the fragility-based numerical approach. For that purpose, a continuous girder RC bridge class containing 8 bridges was selected based on the statistical analysis of the existing RC bridges in China. 75 recorded mainshock-aftershock seismic sequences from 10 well-known earthquakes were selected in this study. In order to account for the uncertainty of modeling parameters, uniform design method was applied as the sampling method for generating the samples for fragility analysis. Fragility curves were then developed using nonlinear time-history analysis in terms of the peak curvature of pier column and displacement of bearings. Finally, the system fragility curves were derived by implementing Monte Carlo simulation on multinormal distribution of two components. From the results of this investigation, it was found that, for the RC continuous bridges, the influence of aftershocks can be harmful to both bridge components and system, which increases both the component fragility of the displacement of bearings and seismic curvature of pier sections and system fragility.

In recent decades, cable-stayed bridges have been widely built around the world due to the appealing aesthetics and efficient and fast mode of construction. Numerous studies have concluded that the cable-stayed bridges are sensitive to earthquakes because they possess low damping characteristics and high flexibility. Moreover, cable-stayed bridges need to warrant operability especially in the moderate-to-severe earthquakes. The provisions implemented in the seismic codes allow obtaining adequate seismic performance for the cable-stayed bridge components; nevertheless, they do not provide definite yet reliable rules to protect the bridge. To date, very few experimental tests have been carried out on the seismic fragility analysis of cable-stayed bridges which is the basis of performance-based analyses. The present paper is aimed at proposing a method to derive the seismic fragility curves of multipylon cable-stayed bridge through shake table tests. Toward this aim, a 1/20 scale three-dimensional model of a 22.5 m cable-stayed bridge in China is constructed and tested dynamically by using the shaking table facility of Tongji University. The cable-stayed bridge contains three pylons and one side pier. The outcomes of the comprehensive shaking table tests carried out on cable-stayed bridge have been utilized to derive fragility curves based on a systemic approach.

Steel fiber is one of the most widely used reinforcements to improve the performance of concrete members. However, few studies have been proposed to study the seismic performance of bridge piers constructed with steel fiber reinforced concrete. This paper presents the collapse vulnerability assessment of typical single bridge piers constructed with steel fibers. Fiber element models of RC bridge piers with and without steel fibers are firstly built by selecting suitable cyclic constitutive laws of steel fiber reinforced concrete, and then calibrated using the experimental results. The seismic capacity and inelastic demand of RC piers with steel fibers are quantified using both nonlinear static pushover analyses and nonlinear incremental dynamic analyses (IDA). In order to conduct the IDA, a suite of 20 earthquake ground motions are selected and scaled to different levels of peak ground acceleration (PGA). Collapse fragility curves are then generated using the maximum drift ratio of piers as the engineering demand parameter (EDP). In order to investigate the impact of various parameters on the collapse fragility curves, six parameters are considered in the parametric study: peak compressive strength of concrete, yield strength of steel, longitudinal reinforcement ratio, axial load ratio, transverse hoops ratio and steel fiber content. It was observed that the concrete strength, longitudinal reinforcement ratio and steel fiber content could significantly affect the collapse fragility curve of the bridge piers with steel fibers.