Structural Redundancy, Robustness, and Disproportionate Collapse Analysis of Highway Bridge Superstructures
Publication: Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 148, Issue 7
Abstract
Performance-based design and system-level assessment methods are becoming the preferred approaches for evaluating the safety of structures. This is particularly important for highway bridges where, because of their exposure to long-term deterioration as well as sudden localized failures, the generally conservative traditional member-oriented approach does not necessarily lead to an accurate evaluation of the actual structural system’s safety levels nor, consequently, to the efficient allocation of the limited resources available for infrastructure management. The objective of this paper is to quantify the effect of damage size and location on bridge elements and how this affects the performance of the entire superstructure system. The paper also presents a simplified equation for estimating the structural robustness of typical highway girder bridge superstructures as a function of the damage type. A numerical example is presented to illustrate alternative approaches for how these concepts could be implemented during the design and safety assessment of highway bridges. In particular, the analysis showed that the occurrence of damage directly under the live load reduced the ultimate capacity of the system in the range of 70%–95%. This reduction was between 40% and 70% when the damage was located away from the loaded zone.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for the thorough analysis of the manuscript and for the useful suggestions provided to improve the quality of the paper. The first author also acknowledge the financial support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Grant Nos. DGECR-2021-00335 and RGPIN-2021-03341. The contents of this paper reflect the views of the authors who are responsible for the facts and accuracy of the data presented herein. The contents of the paper do not necessarily reflect the official views or policies of NSERC.
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Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 148 • Issue 7 • July 2022
Copyright
© 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 16, 2021
Accepted: Feb 15, 2022
Published online: Apr 27, 2022
Published in print: Jul 1, 2022
Discussion open until: Sep 27, 2022
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