• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 1999.05a
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• pp.422-427
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• 1999

This is the basic study on the evaluation of seismic performance for existing railway bridges. This study presents all evaluation items and a progressive method of seismic performance for existing railway bridges. In the evaluation of seismic performance, a two-stage is used. Firstly, according to the seismic performance evaluation categories, preliminary screening of bridges is recommended. And using tile seismic rating system, seismic rank of bridges is calculated. Secondly, for the selected bridges in the first stage, detailed evaluation is recommended.

• Journal of Applied Reliability
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.241-252
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• 2013

Because of financial and safety concerns, there are needs for more accurate prediction of bridge behavior. Underestimation of the bridge load carrying capacity can have serious economic consequences, as deficient bridges must be repaired or rehabilitated. Therefore, the knowledge of the actual bridge behavior under live load may lead to a more realistic calculation of the load carrying capacity and eventually this may allow for more bridges to remain in service with or without minor repairs. The presented research is focused on the reliability evaluation of the actual load carrying capacity of existing bridges based on the field testing. Seventeen existing bridges were tested under truck load to confirm their adequacy of reliability. The actual response of existing bridge structures under live load is measured. Reliability analysis is performed on the selected representative bridges designed in accordance with AASHTO codes for bridge component (girder). Bridges are first evaluated based on the code specified values and design resistance. However, after the field testing program, it is possible to apply the experimental results into the bridge reliability evaluation procedures. Therefore, the actual response of bridge structures, including unintentional composite action, partial fixity of supports, and contribution of nonstructural members are considered in the bridge reliability evaluation. The girder distribution factors obtained from the tests are also applied in the reliability calculation. The results indicate that the reliability indices of selected bridges can be significantly increased by reducing uncertainties without sacrificing the safety of structures, by including the result of field measurement data into calculation.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.11 no.3 s.55
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• pp.43-52
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• 2007

This study suggests a method to determine optimal seismic retrofitting schemes for existing bridges based on weighting-factored evaluation. According to the recognition for potential seismic risk, various kinds of retrofitting methods are applied to improve the seismic performance of existing bridges. However, the relevant technique is not available to select optimal retrofitting scheme for bridges now. This suggested method weights five factors, structural compatibility, economic efficacy, environmental factor, consturctability and maintenance, and draws out optimal seismic retrofitting schemes. The application of the developed method to one hundred sixty existing bridges verifies the adaptability of this method. As a result, this study provides an idealized retrofitting schemes, and the suggested method could be a guideline to determine the more cost-effective and optimal retrofitting schemes for existing bridges in Korea.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.109-112
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• 2006

In this study, an approach that installs seismic isolation bearings was proposed for the seismic retrofit of the existing bridges. The method that replaces all existing bearings with seismic isolators was proposed already. However, in this study, we recommend to utilize the existing bearings for the benefit of safety and cost. According to our proposal, the seismic isolators do not support vertical loads but they just function as the period shifter and the horizontal damper. To verify this approach experimentally, the real scale bearings and isolators for the real highway bridges were designed and fabricated. And the responses of this isolated bridges to the assumed earthquakes were determined by the pseudo dynamic test scheme. The test results were also compared to the responses computed by the well known structural analysis software to check the reliability of the test. From the test results, we found that the retrofitted bridges using the proposed method showed stable performances under earthquakes.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.89 no.4
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• pp.399-409
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• 2024

Assessment of existing concrete bridges is a challenge for owners. It has greater economic impact when compared to designing new bridges. When using conventional linear analyses, judgment of the engineer is required to understand the behavior of redundant structures after the first element in the structural system reaches its ultimate capacity. The alternative is to use a predictive tool such as advanced nonlinear finite element analyses (ANFEA) to assess the overall structural behavior. This paper proposes a new reliability framework for the assessment of existing bridge structures using ANFEA. A general framework defined in previous works, accounting for material uncertainties and concrete model performance, is adapted to the context of the assessment of existing bridges. A "shifted" reliability problem is defined under the assumption of quasi-deterministic dead load effects. The overall exercise is viewed as a progressive pushover analysis up to structural failure, where the actual safety index is compared at each event to a target reliability index.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2003.09a
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• pp.295-302
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• 2003

A quantitative approach for the retrofit prioritization of bridges is developed based on the damage risk of seismic vulnerable components. In the developed approach, seismic damage risk is estimated in the probabilistic perspectives with an analytical bridge model, which can consider various phenomena found in the seismic behaviors of girder-type bridges and damage models of various vulnerable components. Based on the total cost due to failure of structural components, weighting factors are proposed. Finally, the ranking index and retrofit priority of bridges are estimated from the overall damage risk and weighting factors of bridges. As a result, the retrofit priority of four PSC girder bridges is evaluated by using the proposed approach. The vulnerable components in need of seismic retrofit are selected accordingly. From simulated results, the validity of the proposed approach is verified by comparison with the existing approach. In addition, the proposed approach is found to be appropriate in evaluating the priority of existing bridges.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.181-187
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• 2009

After introduction of the earthquake resistant design code, it is required to achieve seismic performance of existing bridges as well as earthquake resistant design of new bridges. The achievement of seismic performance for existing bridges should satisfy the no collapse requirement based on the basic concept of earthquake resistant design, therefore, various methods with different strengthening scale should be suggested according to bridge types and importance categories. At present for typical bridges, most studied and applied strengthening methods are bearing change, pier strengthening and shear key installation for improvement of seismic performance. In this study a typical existing bridge, for which earthquake resistant design is not considered, is selected as an analysis bridge. Design changes are carried out to satisfy the no collapse requirement by way of the ductile failure mechanism and seismic performances are checked. It is shown that the seismic performance of existing bridges can be achieved by way of redesign of bridge system, e.g. determination of pier design section for substructure and change of bearing function for connections between super/sub-structure.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.47-57
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• 2009

Existing bridges are classified into 4 retrofit groups using the current preliminary screening method, considering key terms such as seismicity, vulnerability and social impact effect. However, some irrationality was found when the current method was applied to 442 existing bridges. As a result, it was determined that quantification and a more detailed classification of seismicity were required. The estimation of the vulnerability of box girder bridges having a long span length should be improved, as this showed a tendency to underestimate. It was also necessary to increase the level of social impact effect to that of vulnerability. In this study, an improved preliminary screening method has been proposed on the basis of the estimation results of existing bridges.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.9-17
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• 2004

The seismic performance evaluation and retrofit process are very important in old existing bridges. If the result is not appropriate. then a retrofit process are required. Among various retrofit methods, the seismic isolation is a very useful method. because it can be applied by replacing old bridge bearings. In this study, the effectiveness of seismic isolation is rationally verified. For this purpose, two seismic isolations used widely are selected and non-linear static and dynamic analyses are performed. The responses of existing bridges are compared with those of retrofited bridges by seismic isolation bridge for earthquake of target level. and seismic performances are evaluated.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.539-558
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• 2012

The diagnosis of bridge serviceability is carried out by a combination of in-situ visual inspection, static and dynamic loading tests and analyses. Structural health monitoring (SHM) using information technology and sensors is increasingly being used for providing a better estimate of structural performance characteristics rather than above traditional methods. Because the mechanical behavior of bridges with various kinds of damage can not be made clear, it is very difficult to estimate both the damage mode and degree of damage of existing bridges. In this paper, the sensitivity of both static and dynamic behaviors of bridges are studied as a measure of damage assessment through experiments on model bridges induced with some specified artificial damages. And, a method of damage assessment of bridges based on those behaviors is discussed in detail. Finally, based on the results, a possible application for structural health monitoring systems for existing bridges is also discussed.