Influential curved steel bridge fragility analysis parameters

Past earthquakes have highlighted the susceptibility of curved steel girder bridges to damage from seismic events in the United States. One major part of a regional vulnerability assessment of these bridges could be the completion of sensitivity analyses that assist with identifying their influential seismic response parameters. In this study, an available inventory of curved steel girder bridges was used as a basis to establish statistical characteristics for a sensitivity study. 3D finite element models were employed to capture critical seismic response information. In this study, statistical tools, including the Plackett-Burman, Pareto and Prediction profiler methods, were implemented to determine critical parameters. This paper presents the sample results for tangential bearing translations, which are one of the critical response parameters. The results revealed that, although the relative significance of the different seismic response input parameters may change for a given seismic response output variable; the same parameters, including span number, maximum span length, radius of curvature, girder spacing, and cross-frame spacing, were typically the most significant.