Application of the Incremental Modal Pushover Analysis to Bridges Subjected to Near-Fault Ground Motions

Near-fault events can cause severe damage to civil structures, including bridges. Many studies have demonstrated that the seismic assessment is not straightforward. Usually, dealing with near-fault ground motion, the structural analysis is performed using Nonlinear Response-History Analysis (NRHA) but in the last years, many authors have tested existing pushover-based procedures originally developed and validated using far-field events. Between those procedures, the Incremental Modal Pushover Analysis (IMPAβ) is a pushover-based procedure specifically developed for bridges that, in this work, was applied to a case study considering near-fault pulse-like ground motion records. The records were analyzed and selected from the European Strong Motion Database. In the paper the results obtained with IMPAβ together with other standard pushover procedures, are compared with NRHA and incremental dynamic analyses; the vertical component of the motion has been also considered. Results obtained with the bridge case study demonstrate that the vertical seismic action has a minor influence on the structural response and that IMPAβ is confirmed as a very effective pushover-based method that can be applied also for near-fault events.

IMPAβ: Incremental Modal Pushover Analysis for Bridges

In the present study, the incremental modal pushover analysis (IMPA), a pushover-based approach already proposed and applied to buildings by the same authors, was revised and proposed for bridges (IMPAβ). Pushover analysis considers the effects of higher modes on the structural response. Bridges are structurally very different from multi-story buildings, where multimodal pushover (MPA) has been developed and is currently used. In bridges, consideration for higher modes is often necessary: The responses of some structural elements of the bridge (e.g., piers) influence the overall bridge response. Therefore, the failure of these elements can determine the failure of the whole structure, even if they give a small contribution total base shear. Incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) requires input accelerograms for high intensities, which are rare in the databases, while scaling of generated accelerograms with a simple increment of the scaling acceleration is not appropriate. This fact renders IDA, which is by its nature time-consuming, not straightforward. On the contrary, the change of input spectrum required by IMPA is simple. IMPAβ also utilizes a simple complementary method coupled to MPA, to obtain bounds at very high seismic intensities. Finally, the two incremental methods based on static nonlinear and dynamic nonlinear analyses are compared.