A State-Dependent Fragility Framework for Seismically Isolated Reinforced Concrete Bridges under Sequential Earthquake Loading
Abstract
Abstract Sequential earthquake events significantly influence the seismic performance of reinforced concrete (RC) bridges through cumulative damage accumulation, residual deformation, and progressive stiffness degradation. Conventional seismic assessment methodologies generally assume an undamaged structural state for each earthquake event, thereby neglecting state-dependent damage evolution and overestimating the residual seismic capacity of bridge systems. This study presents a state-dependent performance-based framework for the nonlinear seismic assessment and fragility evaluation of seismically isolated RC bridges incorporating nonlinear soil–structure interaction (SSI). The proposed methodology preserves the committed nonlinear material state throughout successive earthquake events, enabling continuous simulation of concrete cracking, reinforcement yielding, lead-rubber bearing (LRB) hysteresis, foundation flexibility, and residual deformation without reinitializing the finite element modeling. A 3-D nonlinear finite element model of a four-span RC bridge was developed in OpenSeesPy using fibre-based force-beam-column elements, bilinear hysteretic LRB bearings, distributed nonlinear API p–y springs, and Rayleigh damping. Sequential nonlinear time-history analyses were performed using the 2001 Bhuj, 1940 El Centro, and 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake records, followed by Incremental Dynamic Analysis (IDA) and state-dependent lognormal fragility assessment. The computational…
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