A simplified approach to estimate seismic fragility of corrosion damaged RC bridge piers

Abstract

Safety of the existing corrosion damaged reinforced concrete (RC) bridges during a seismic event is a matter of increasing concern. To reduce the enormous economic loss and casualties, it is important to examine the potential seismic risk of corroded RC bridge structures. This paper presents a simplified method to determine the seismic fragility of corroded RC bridge piers by developing a simplified FEM model and seismic fragility analysis. To make the proposed approach realistic, the numerical model is validated with two different experimental studies available in the literature. Obtain results from the simplified numerical model demonstrated excellent agreement with the experimental tests, making it suitable for seismic vulnerability analysis. After validation, the numerical model is further adopted to perform non-linear static pushover analysis of corroded RC bridge piers. Finally, a recently developed software tool SPO2FRAG is utilized to carry out seismic fragility analysis by defining three different damage levels.