• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.17-26
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• 2009

The capacity spectrum method (CSM), which is known to be an approximate technique for assessing the seismic capacity of an existing structure, was originally proposed for simple building structures that could be modeled as single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) systems. More recently, however, CSM has increasingly been adopted for assessing most bridge structures, as it has many practical advantages. Some studies on this topic are now being performed, and a few results of these have been presented as ground-breaking research. However, studies have until now been limited to symmetrical straight bridges only. This study evaluates the practical applicability of CSM to the evaluation of irregular curved bridges. For this purpose, the seismic capacities of 3-span prestressed concrete bridges with different subtended angles subjected to some recorded earthquakes are compared with a more refined approach based on nonlinear time history analysis. The results of the study show that when used for curved bridges, CSM induces higher inelastic displacement responses than the actual values, and that the gap between the two becomes larger as the subtended angle increases.