Fragility analysis of bridges under ground motion with spatial variation

Seismic ground motion can vary significantly over distances comparable to the length of a majority of highway bridges on multiple supports. This paper presents results of fragility analysis of highway bridges under ground motion with spatial variation. Ground motion time histories are artificially generated with different amplitudes, phases, as well as frequency contents at different support locations. Monte Carlo simulation is performed to study dynamic responses of an example multi-span bridge under these ground motions. The effect of spatial variation on the seismic response is systematically examined and the resulting fragility curves are compared with those under identical support ground motion. This study shows that ductility demands for the bridge columns can be underestimated if the bridge is analyzed using identical support ground motions rather than differential support ground motions. Fragility curves are developed as functions of different measures of ground motion intensity including peak ground acceleration, peak ground velocity, spectral acceleration, spectral velocity and spectral intensity. This study represents a first attempt to develop fragility curves under spatially varying ground motion and provides information useful for improvement of the current seismic design codes so as to account for the effects of spatial variation in the seismic design of long-span bridges.