Effects of Strength Reduction Factors for Capacity Spectrum Analysis of Bridge Structures using Inelastic Demand Spectrum

The capacity spectrum method (CSM) is a simple and graphical seismic analysis procedure. Originally, it has been developed for buildings, but now its applicability has been extended to bridge structures. It is based on the capacity curve estimated by pushover analysis and demand spectrum reduced from linear elastic design spectrum by using effective damping or strength reduction factor. In this paper, the inelastic demand spectrum as the reduced demand spectrum is calculated from the linear elastic design spectrum by using the several formulas for the strength reduction factor. The effects of the strength reduction factor for the capacity spectrum analysis are evaluated for 3 types of symmetric and asymmetric bridge structures. To investigate an accuracy of the CSM which several formulas for strength reduction factor were applied, the maximum displacements estimated by the CSM are compared with the results obtained by nonlinear time history analysis for 8 artificially generated earthquakes. The maximum displacements estimated by the CSM using the SJ formula among the several strength reduction factors provide the most accurate agreement with those calculated by the inelastic time history analysis.