Comparison of Post-Earthquake Highway Bridge Repair Costs

Highway bridges in highly seismic regions can sustain considerable residual displacements in their columns following large earthquakes. These residual displacements are an important measure of post-earthquake functionality, and often determine whether or not a bridge remains usable following an earthquake. In this study, a self-centering system is considered that makes use of unbonded, post-tensioned steel tendons to provide a restoring force to bridge columns to mitigate the problem of residual displacements. To evaluate the proposed system, a code-conforming, case-study bridge structure is analyzed both with conventional reinforced concrete columns and with self-centering, post-tensioned columns using a formalized performance-based earthquake engineering (PBEE) framework. The PBEE analysis allows for a quantitative comparison of the relative performance of the two systems in terms of engineering parameters such as peak drift ratio as well as more readily understood metrics such as expected repair costs and downtime. The self-centering column system is found to undergo similar peak displacements to the conventional system, but sustains lower residual displacements under large earthquakes, resulting in similar expected repair costs but significantly lower expected downtimes.

Section: Loss Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Loss Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Loss Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Loss Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Performance‐based earthquake engineering assessment of a self‐centering, post‐tensioned concrete bridge system

Lee

Billington

2010

“…Particularly, the loss model that relates measures of damage (DM) to repair quantities (Q) is reformulated to more accurately capture the response of the testbed bridge as calibrated using realistic damage and loss scenarios [35]. Previous implementations of the PEER framework [20,21] were based on a power-law, least-squares, relationship between DM and Q (or DV)…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Post‐earthquake bridge repair cost and repair time estimation methodology

Mackie

Wong

Stojadinović

2009

Self Cite

SUMMARYWhile structural engineers have traditionally focused on individual components (bridges, for example) of transportation networks for design, retrofit, and analysis, it has become increasingly apparent that the economic costs to society after extreme earthquake events are caused at least as much from indirect costs as direct costs due to individual structures. This paper describes an improved methodology for developing probabilistic estimates of repair costs and repair times that can be used for evaluating the performance of new bridge design options and existing bridges in preparation for the next major earthquake. The proposed approach in this paper is an improvement on previous bridge loss modeling studies-it is based on the local linearization of the dependence between repair quantities and damage states so that the resulting model follows a linear relationship between damage states and repair points. The methodology uses the concept of performance groups (PGs) that account for damage and repair of individual bridge components and subassemblies. The method is validated using two simple examples that compare the proposed method to simulation and previous methods based on loss models using a power-law relationship between repair quantities and damage. In addition, an illustration of the method is provided for a complete study on the performance of a common five-span overpass bridge structure in California. Intensity-dependent repair cost ratios (RCRs) and repair times are calculated using the proposed approach, as well as plots that show the disaggregation of repair cost by repair quantity and by PG. This provides the decision maker with a higher fidelity of data when evaluating the contribution of different bridge components to the performance of the bridge system, where performance is evaluated in terms of repair costs and repair times rather than traditional engineering quantities such as displacements and stresses.

A probabilistic framework for correlated seismic downtime and repair cost estimation of geo‐structures

Shafieezadeh

DesRoches

Rix

et al. 2013

SUMMARY An important component of probabilistic risk assessment methods is the development of models to quantify the direct consequences of damage to geo‐structural components for a given intensity of the hazard. This paper presents a general probabilistic framework for correlated repair cost and downtime estimation of geo‐structures exposed to seismic hazards. The framework uses as input the results of nonlinear time‐history analysis of geo‐structures for the set of earthquake records that are representative of the seismic hazard models for the region of interest. The repair cost and downtime are estimated for individual earthquakes probabilistically considering the uncertainties associated with damage states. In addition, the formulation of the repair cost and downtime accounts for the reduction in the repair requirements as the number of damaged components in the given damage state increases. An analytical linear and two bilinear regression models are proposed for conditional correlated seismic repair cost and downtime estimation of geo‐structures given the intensity measure. The proposed framework is demonstrated by developing seismic repair models of a typical pile‐supported wharf structure on the west coast of the United States. The presented framework is general and can be applied to other types of geo‐structures and hazards and can include other decision variables such as loss of life as well. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.