TOWARDS A TAXONOMY FOR PORTUGUESE RC BRIDGES

Abstract eng:
This study focuses on the detailed characterization of a significant share of the Portuguese roadway bridge stock to be used for macro-area seismic loss assessment purposes. The majority of the RC bridges and viaducts in Portugal have indeed never witnessed a major earthquake event hence their behaviour under such circumstances is rather unknown. As a result, a comprehensive understanding of the vulnerability of such structures is of utmost value. Starting from information on over 5’000 existing bridges, drawn from a representative database, the geometrical properties of the RC portion are statistically analysed with the aim of establishing a set of bridge classes. Subsequently, variability and uncertainty are modelled through a complete statistical characterization of the collected information. Moreover, a refinement of existing taxonomy schemes for bridges is herein proposed. The outcome of the present study can be used for the assessment of such a large bridge stock, being adopted, for instance, as input to generate automatized calculation environments to develop fragility models for each bridge class and subsequent loss estimation exercises.

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