Seismic Fragility Analysis for Probabilistic Performance Evaluation of PSC Box Girder Bridges

Seismic fragility curves of a structure represent the probability of exceeding the prescribed structural damage state for a given various levels of ground motion intensity such as peak ground acceleration (PGA), spectral acceleration () and spectral displacement (). So those are very essential to evaluate the structural seismic performance and seismic risk. The purpose of this paper is to develop seismic fragility curves for PSC box girder bridges. In order to construct numerical fragility curve of bridge structure using nonlinear time history analysis, a set of ground motions corresponding to design spectrum are artificially generated. Assuming a lognormal distribution, the fragility curve is estimated by using the methodology proposed by Shinozuka et al. PGA is simple and generally used parameter in fragility curve as ground motion intensity. However, the PGA has not good relationship with the inelastic structural behavior. So, and with more direct relationship for structural damage are used in fragility analysis as more useful intensity measures instead of PGA. The numerical fragility curves based on nonlinear time history analysis are compared with those obtained from simple method suggested in HAZUS program.