Study On Seismic Safety Performance For Continuous Girder Bridge Based On Near-Fault Strong Ground Motions

In order to explore the safety performance of continuous structure bridge near fault zone, a typical three spans continuous girder bridge of highway was selected to study the structural seismic response. The finite element model of whole bridge considered the force characteristics of bearing and pile-soil interaction was constructed. Typical near-fault records were selected from the important earthquake events. Several artificial waves characterized with the soil type in bridge site were simulated and used for dynamic analysis. Comparing with the seismic response of bridge under three given acceleration design spectrum, the seismic performance of continuous bridge was studied by nonlinear dynamic time-history method. Research results indicates that, the seismic design spectrum considering near-fault effect, especially large amplitude pulse effect of near-fault records, will significantly enhance the seismic response of continuous girder bridge. The fact that the near-fault effect is not considered in China existing highway bridge seismic design code will increase the destructive risk of structure. (C) 2012 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.