Deciding the order of interventions on the structure of reinforced concrete (RC) bridges for earthquake conditions

Abstract

A multitude of existing bridges fail to meet the criteria of seismic resistance, as designed according to inadequate regulations, which eventually led to the reduction in their resistance. This practice requires interventions (rehabilitation or strengthening) conducted on their structure, which in turn requires developing methods of assessment of seismic performances of existing reinforced concrete (RC) girder bridges. Due to budget constrains it is impossible to strengthen all the bridges, so that a list of priorities is necessary to be drawn. The rank of a specific bridge in this list is stated by the importance of the road, age of the bridge, technical regulations according to which the bridge was designed and the condition of vital support elements. Ranking requires conducting multi-criteria optimization. This paper is focused on overpass, which is used to demonstrate the developed methodology.