• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.775-796
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• 2014

This study presents a vibration-based health monitoring strategy for short span bridges utilizing an inspection vehicle. How to screen the health condition of short span bridges in terms of a drive-by bridge inspection is described. Feasibility of the drive-by bridge inspection is investigated through a scaled laboratory moving vehicle experiment. The feasibility of using an instrumented vehicle to detect the natural frequency and changes in structural damping of a model bridge was observed. Observations also demonstrated the possibility of diagnosis of bridges by comparing patterns of identified bridge dynamic parameters through periodical monitoring. It was confirmed that the moving vehicle method identifies the damage location and severity well.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.129-144
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• 2014

In this paper, a fuzzy inference system and an analytical hierarchy process-based online evaluation technique is developed to monitor the condition of the 32-km Donghai Bridge in Shanghai. The system has 478 sensors distributed along eight segments selected from the whole bridge. An online evaluation subsystem is realized, which uses raw data and extracted features or indices to give a set of hierarchically organized condition evaluations. The thresholds of each index were set to an initial value obtained from a structure damage and performance evolution analysis of the bridge. After one year of baseline monitoring, the initial threshold system was updated from the collected data. The results show that the techniques described are valid and reliable. The online method fulfills long-term infrastructure health monitoring requirements for the Donghai Bridge.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.85 no.1
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• pp.81-88
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• 2023

This paper begins by analyzing cable vibrations due to external excitations and their effects on the overall dynamic behavior of cable-stayed bridges. It is concluded that if the natural frequency of a cable approaches any natural frequency of the bridge, the cable loses its rigidity and functionality. The results of this analysis explain the phenomenon that occurred on the Dubrovnik Bridge in Croatia during a storm and measures for its retrofit. A field test was conducted before the bridge was opened to traffic. It was concluded: "The Bridge excited unpleasant transverse superstructure vibration with the frequency of approximately 0.470 Hz. Hence, it seems possible that a pair of stays vibrating in phase may excite deck vibrations". Soon after this Bridge opened, a storm dumped heavy damp snow in the area, causing the six longest cable stay pairs of the main span to undergo large-amplitude vibrations, and the superstructure underwent considerable displacements in combined torsion-sway and bending modes. This necessitated rehabilitation measures for the Bridge including devices to suppress the large-amplitude vibrations of cables. The rehabilitation and monitoring of the Bridge are also presented here.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.187-197
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• 2009

This paper presents a systematic approach for estimating fragility curves and damage probability matrices for different frequencies. Fragility curves and damage probability indicate the probabilities that a structure will sustain different degrees of damage at different ground motion levels. The seismic damages are to achieved by probabilistic evaluation because of uncertainty of earthquakes. In contrast to previous approaches, this paper presents a method that is based on nonlinear dynamic analysis of the structure using empirical data. This paper presents the probability of damage as a function of peak ground acceleration and estimates the probability of five damage levels for prestressed concrete (PSC) bridge pier subjected to given ground acceleration. At each level, 100 artificial earthquake motions were generated in terms of soil conditions, and nonlinear time domain analyses was performed for the damage states of PSC bridge pier structures. These damage states are described by displacement ductility resulting from seismic performance based on existing research results. Using the damage states and ground motion parameters, five fragility curves for PSC bridge pier with five types of dominant frequencies were constructed assuming a log-normal distribution. The effect of dominant frequences was found to be significant on fragility curves.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.7
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• pp.88-94
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• 2018

This study examined the safety of a cable stayed bridge caused by damage to the cable system. Many cable-supported bridges, including cable-stayed bridges and suspension bridges, have been constructed on the Korean peninsula. This requires efficient maintenance and management because this structure has complex structural components and systems. This large structure also often faces risks either from manmade causes or natural phenomena. In 2015, the cables on one cable-stayed bridge in South Korea was struck by lightning, which led to a fire on the cables. These cables were damaged, which put the bridge at risk. This bridge was back in use after a few weeks of investigations and replacements of the cables but this was done at enormous social and economic expense. After this event, risk-based management for infrastructure is required by public demand. Therefore, this study examined the risks on the cable system due to potential damage. In this paper, a one cable-stayed bridge in South Korea was selected and its safety was investigated based on the damage scenarios of cable system for efficient and prompt management, and to support decision making. FEM analysis was conducted to evaluate the safety of the bridges after damage to the cable system.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.5 no.6
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• pp.657-678
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• 2013

For economical earthquake resistant design of cable-stayed bridge tower, the use of energy dissipation systems for the earthquake protection of steel structures represents an alternative seismic design method where the tower structure could be constructed to dissipate a large amount of earthquake input energy through inelastic deformations in certain positions, which could be easily retrofitted after damage. The design of energy dissipation systems for bridges could be achieved as the result of two conflicting requirements: no damage under serviceability limit state load condition and maximum dissipation under ultimate limit state load condition. A new concept for cable-stayed bridge tower seismic design that incorporates sacrificial link scheme of low yield point steel horizontal beam is introduced to enable the tower frame structure to remain elastic under large seismic excitation. A nonlinear dynamic analysis for the tower model with the proposed energy dissipation systems is carried out and compared to the response obtained for the tower with its original configuration. The improvement in seismic performance of the tower with supplemental passive energy dissipation system has been measured in terms of the reduction achieved in different response quantities. Obtained results show that the proposed energy dissipation system of low yield point steel seismic link could strongly enhance the seismic performance of the tower structure where the tower and the overall bridge demands are significantly reduced. Low yield point steel seismic link effectively reduces the damage of main structural members under earthquake loading as seismic link yield level decreases due their exceptional behavior as well as its ability to undergo early plastic deformations achieving the concentration of inelastic deformation at tower horizontal beam.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.283-292
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• 2013

The objective of this research is to evaluate of global and local damage for steel-concrete composite structures under highway bridge exposed to fire loading. To enhance the accuracy and efficiency of the numerical analysis, the proposed transient nonlinear thermal structure interaction(TSI) parallel fire analysis method is implemented in ANSYS. To validate the TSI parallel fire analysis method, a comparison is made with the standard fire test results. The proposed TSI parallel fire analysis method is applied to fire damage analysis and performance evaluation for Buchen highway bridge. The result of analysis, temperature of low flange and web are exceed the critical temperature. The deflection and deformation state show good agreement with the fire accident of buchen highway bridge.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.1695-1705
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• 2014

In the present study, a total of 275 tested specimens (149 of non-seismically designed and 126 of seismically designed) for reinforced concrete bridge piers with circular section have been investigated in order to suggest drift limits probabilistically according to damage states in seismic fragility analysis. Thus, quantitative damage states of the piers have been evaluated depending on details of the piers. Nonlinear time-history analyses have been conducted for a damaged bridge in terms of using the suggested drift limits. Then, seismic fragility analysis for a reinforced concrete bridge structure has been conducted using both suggested and existing drift limits. Comparative analyses have revealed that median values by the suggested limits is smaller than those by the existing limits. This implies that seismic performance of the structure can be overestimated when the existing limits are used.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.275-288
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• 2023

Based on the crucial role of high-speed railway bridges (HSRBs) in the safety of high-speed railway operations, it is an important approach to mitigate earthquake hazards by proceeding with seismic risk assessments in their whole life. Bridge seismic risk assessment, which usually evaluates the seismic performance of bridges from a probabilistic perspective, provides technical support for bridge risk management. The seismic performance of bridges is greatly affected by the degradation of material properties, therefore, material damage plays a nonnegligible role in the seismic risk assessment of the bridge. The effect of material damage is not considered in most current studies on seismic risk analysis of bridges, nevertheless. To fill the gap in this area, in this paper, a nonlinear dynamic time-history analysis has been carried out by establishing OpenSees finite element model, and a seismic vulnerability analysis is carried out based on the incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) method. On this basis, combined with the site risk analysis, the time-dependent seismic risk analysis of an offshore three-span HSRB in the whole life cycle has been conducted. The results showed that the seismic risk probabilities of both components and system of the bridge increase with the service time, and their seismic risk probabilities increase significantly in the last service period due to the degradation of the material strength, which demonstrates that the impact of durability damage should be considered when evaluating the seismic performance of bridges in the design and service period.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.253-261
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• 2018

This article details a bridge-specific fragility method developed to enhance the seismic design and resilience of bridges. Current seismic design processes provide guidance for the design of a bridge that will not collapse during a design hazard event. However, they do not provide performance information of the bridge at different hazard levels or due to design changes. Therefore, there is a need for a supplement to this design process that will provide statistical information on the performance of a bridge, beyond traditional emphases on collapse prevention. This article proposes a bridge-specific parameterized fragility method to enable efficient estimation of various levels of damage probability for alternative bridge design parameters. A multi-parameter demand model is developed to incorporate bridge design details directly in the fragility estimation. Monte Carlo simulation and Logistic regression are used to determine the fragility of the bridge or bridge component. The resulting parameterized fragility model offers a basis for a bridge-specific design tool to explore the influence of design parameter variation on the expected performance of a bridge. When used as part of the design process, these tools can help to transform a prescriptive approach into a more performance-based approach, efficiently providing probabilistic performance information about a new bridge design. An example of the method and resulting fragility estimation is presented.