Seismic Fragility of Railway Bridge Classes: Methods, Models, and Comparison with the State of the Art
Publication: Journal of Bridge Engineering
Volume 24, Issue 12
Abstract
This study proposes an approach for developing seismic fragility models based on elastic net regularized logistic regression and applies it to two railway bridge classes typical to the central and southeastern United States (CSUS). Railway bridge class fragilities are not available in the literature despite recorded evidence of earthquake damage to railway bridges. The introduction of elastic net regularization helps in selecting the best set of predictor variables for fragility modeling even if they are mutually correlated. The proposed fragility models are compared to their corresponding highway bridge counterparts, given that current practice in regional risk assessment recommends adopting these as proxies for railway bridge fragility. The analysis reveals that multispan simply supported steel girder railway bridges, the most common bridge class, show lower fragility than their corresponding highway bridge counterparts. However, multispan simply supported steel through plate girder railway bridges, the other common bridge class, show comparatively higher seismic fragility. The proposed fragility models serve as key inputs in a broader framework of quantifying seismic resilience of railway networks, as well as providing a practical baseline for seismic loss assessment and retrofit prioritization.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
This study is based on research supported by the Center for Risk-Based Community Resilience Planning and its financial support is gratefully acknowledged. The Center for Risk-Based Community Resilience Planning is a NIST-funded Center of Excellence; the center is funded through a cooperative agreement between NIST and Colorado State University (NIST Financial Assistance Award No. 70NANB15H044). The views expressed are those of the authors and may not represent the official position of the National Institute of Standards and Technology or the US Department of Commerce.
References
Abo-Shadi, N., M. Saiidi, and D. Sanders. 2000. Seismic response of reinforced concrete bridge pier walls in the weak direction. Technical Rep. MCEER-00-0006. Buffalo, NY: Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (MCEER).
Agrawal, A. K., M. Ghosn, S. Alampalli, and Y. Pan. 2012. “Seismic fragility of retrofitted multispan continuous steel bridges in New York.” J. Bridge Eng. 17 (4): 562–575. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)BE.1943-5592.0000290.
Basöz, N., and A. Kiremidjian. 1999. “Development of empirical fragility curves for bridges.” In Proc., Optimizing Post-Earthquake Lifeline System Reliability, 693–702. Reston, VA: ASCE.
Byers, W. G. 2004. “Railroad lifeline damage in earthquakes.” In Proc., 13th World Conf. on Earthquake Engineering, Paper 324. Tokyo: International Association for Earthquake Engineering.
Choi, E., R. DesRoches, and B. Nielson. 2004. “Seismic fragility of typical bridges in moderate seismic zones.” Eng. Struct. 26 (2): 187–199. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2003.09.006.
Chung, R. 1996. January 17, 1995 Hyogoken-Nanbu (Kobe) earthquake: Performance of structures, lifelines, and fire protection systems. NIST SP 901. Gaithersburg, MD: NIST.
de Felice, G., and R. Giannini. 2010. “An efficient approach for seismic fragility assessment with application to old reinforced concrete bridges.” J. Earthquake Eng. 14 (2): 231–251. https://doi.org/10.1080/13632460903086028.
FEMA. 2015. HAZUS–MH 2.1: Technical manual. Washington, DC: FEMA.
Ghosh, J., J. E. Padgett, and L. Dueñas-Osorio. 2013. “Surrogate modeling and failure surface visualization for efficient seismic vulnerability assessment of highway bridges.” Probab. Eng. Mech. 34: 189–199. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.probengmech.2013.09.003.
Ghosh, J., K. Rokneddin, J. E. Padgett, and L. Dueñas-Osorio. 2014. “Seismic reliability assessment of aging highway bridge networks with field instrumentation data and correlated failures, I: Methodology.” Earthq. Spectra 30 (2): 795–817. https://doi.org/10.1193/040512EQS155M.
Hoerl, A. E., and R. W. Kennard. 2000. “Ridge regression: Biased estimation for nonorthogonal problems.” Technometrics 42 (1): 80–86. https://doi.org/10.1080/00401706.2000.10485983.
Hwang, H., J. B. Liu, and Y.-H. Chiu. 2001. Seismic fragility analysis of highway bridges. Technical Rep. 01-06. Urbana, IL: MAE Center.
James, G., D. Witten, T. Hastie, and R. Tibshirani. 2013. An introduction to statistical learning. New York: Springer.
Jernigan, J. B., and H. Hwang. 2002. “Development of bridge fragility curves.” In Proc., 7th US National Conf. on Earthquake Engineering. Oakland, CA: Earthquake Engineering Research Institute.
Kameshwar, S., and J. E. Padgett. 2014. “Multi-hazard risk assessment of highway bridges subjected to earthquake and hurricane hazards.” Eng. Struct. 78: 154–166. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2014.05.016.
Karim, K. R., and F. Yamazaki. 2001. “Effect of earthquake ground motions on fragility curves of highway bridge piers based on numerical simulation.” Earthquake Eng. Struct. Dyn. 30 (12): 1839–1856. https://doi.org/10.1002/eqe.97.
Kurian, S. A., S. K. Deb, and A. Dutta. 2006. “Seismic vulnerability assessment of a railway overbridge using fragility curves.” In Proc., 4th Int. Conf. on Earthquake Engineering, 317. Taipei, Taiwan: National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering.
Mackie, K. R., and B. Stojadinović. 2007. “R-factor parameterized bridge damage fragility curves.” J. Bridge Eng. 12 (4): 500–510. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)1084-0702(2007)12:4(500).
Mander, J. B., and N. Basöz. 1999. “Seismic fragility curve theory for highway bridges.” In Proc., Optimizing Post-Earthquake Lifeline System Reliability, 31–40. Reston, VA: ASCE.
Mangalathu, S., J. S. Jeon, and R. DesRoches. 2018. “Critical uncertainty parameters influencing seismic performance of bridges using Lasso regression.” Earthquake Eng. Struct. Dyn. 47 (3): 784–801. https://doi.org/10.1002/eqe.2991.
Maragakis, E. M., B. M. Douglas, Q. Chen, and U. Sandirasegaram. 1998. “Full-scale tests of a railway bridge.” Transp. Res. Rec. 1624 (1): 140–147. https://doi.org/10.3141/1624-17.
McCulloch, D. S., and M. G. Bonilla. 1970. Effects of the earthquake of March 27 1964, on the Alaska Railroad. Geological Survey Professional Paper 545-D. Washington, DC: USGS.
Nateghi-A, F., and V. L. Shahsavar. 2004. “Development of fragility and reliability curves for seismic evaluation of a major prestressed concrete bridge.” In Proc., 13th World Conf. on Earthquake Engineering. Tokyo: International Association for Earthquake Engineering.
Nielson, B. G. 2005. “Analytical fragility curves for highway bridges in moderate seismic zones.” Ph.D. thesis, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology.
Nielson, B. G., and R. DesRoches. 2007. “Analytical seismic fragility curves for typical bridges in the central and southeastern United States.” Earthq. Spectra 23 (3): 615–633. https://doi.org/10.1193/1.2756815.
Padgett, J. E., and R. DesRoches. 2009. “Retrofitted bridge fragility analysis for typical classes of multispan bridges.” Earthq. Spectra 25 (1): 117–141. https://doi.org/10.1193/1.3049405.
Pan, Y., A. K. Agrawal, M. Ghosn, and S. Alampalli. 2010. “Seismic fragility of multispan simply supported steel highway bridges in New York State. I: Bridge modeling, parametric analysis, and retrofit design.” J. Bridge Eng. 15 (5): 448–461. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)BE.1943-5592.0000085.
Park, J., and E. Choi. 2011. “Fragility analysis of track-on steel-plate-girder railway bridges in Korea.” Eng. Struct. 33 (3): 696–705. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2010.09.028.
Park, J., and P. Towashiraporn. 2014. “Rapid seismic damage assessment of railway bridges using the response-surface statistical model.” Struct. Saf. 47 (Mar): 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.strusafe.2013.10.001.
Ramanathan, K. N. 2012. “Next generation seismic fragility curves for California bridges incorporating the evolution in seismic design philosophy.” Ph.D. thesis, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology.
Rix, G. J., and J. A. Fernandez-Leon. 2004. “Synthetic ground motions for Memphis, TN.” Accessed July 5, 2008. http://www.ce.gatech.edu/research/maegroundmotionæ.
Rojahn, C., and R. L. Sharpe. 1985. Earthquake damage evaluation data for California. ATC-13. Redwood City, CA: Applied Technology Council.
Rokneddin, K., J. Ghosh, L. Dueñas-Osorio, and J. E. Padgett. 2013. “Bridge retrofit prioritisation for ageing transportation networks subject to seismic hazards.” Struct. Infrastruct. Eng. 9 (10): 1050–1066. https://doi.org/10.1080/15732479.2011.654230.
Schotanus, M. I. J., P. Franchin, A. Lupoi, and P. E. Pinto. 2004. “Seismic fragility analysis of 3D structures.” Struct. Saf. 26 (4): 421–441. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.strusafe.2004.03.001.
Seo, J., and D. G. Linzell. 2012. “Horizontally curved steel bridge seismic vulnerability assessment.” Eng. Struct. 34: 21–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2011.09.008.
Shinozuka, M., M. Q. Feng, J. Lee, and T. Naganuma. 2000. “Statistical analysis of fragility curves.” J. Eng. Mech. 126 (12): 1224–1231. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9399(2000)126:12(1224).
Siddiquee, K. N. 2015. “Seismic vulnerability assessment of wall pier highway bridges in British Columbia.” Master's thesis, School of Civil Engineering, Univ. of British Columbia.
Sorgenfrei, D. F., and J. W. N. Marianos. 2000. “Railroad bridges.” In Bridge engineering handbook, edited by W. Chen and L. Duan, 23-2–23-15. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
UIC (International Union of Railways). 2001. Track–bridge interaction. Recommendations for calculations. UIC-774-3. Paris: UIC.
Wen, Y. K., and C. L. Wu. 2001. “Uniform hazard ground motions for mid-America cities.” Earthq. Spectra 17 (2): 359–384. https://doi.org/10.1193/1.1586179.
Wotherspoon, L., A. Bradshaw, R. Green, C. Wood, A. Palermo, M. Cubrinovski, and B. Bradley. 2011. “Performance of bridges during the 2010 Darfield and 2011 Christchurch earthquakes.” Seismol. Res. Lett. 82 (6): 950–964. https://doi.org/10.1785/gssrl.82.6.950.
Yamazaki, F., H. Motomura, and T. Hamada. 2000. “Damage assessment of expressway networks in Japan based on seismic monitoring.” In Proc., 12th World Conf. on Earthquake Engineering. Tokyo: International Association for Earthquake Engineering.
Zhang, J., Y. Huo, S. J. Brandenberg, and P. Kashighandi. 2008. “Effects of structural characterizations on fragility functions of bridges subject to seismic shaking and lateral spreading.” Earthquake Eng. Eng. Vib. 7 (4): 369–382. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11803-008-1009-2.
Zou, H., and T. Hastie. 2005. “Regularization and variable selection via the elastic net.” J. R. Stat. Soc. 67 (2): 301–320. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9868.2005.00503.x.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2019 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 28, 2018
Accepted: May 20, 2019
Published online: Sep 24, 2019
Published in print: Dec 1, 2019
Discussion open until: Feb 24, 2020
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.