Project Report :

Design and Assessment of Bridge Structures Under Multiple

Disaster Hazards

By :
Hadiyoga Tjitro M10805819
Task 1
Possible Structural Failures
The Centre of Taiwan experienced an earthquake on Sept. 21, 1999. The earthquake, called Chi-
chi Earthquake, measured 7.6 on the moment magnitude (Mw) scale and causing severe
damaged to constructed facilities. According to the Taiwanese Highway Bureau's preliminary
report, at least nine bridges were severely damaged, including three bridges that were under
construction. Five bridges collapsed due to fault rupture, and seven bridges were moderately
damaged.
Wu-Shi Bridge is one of several bridges that were damaged. The bridge has 18 spans with a total
length of 624.5 meters and a width of 25 meters. This bridge has two parallel structures that were
constructed with two different periods. The superstructure of the northbound bridge was
constructed in 1981 older than The southbound bridge, which was completed in 1983. Both
structures use PCI girders in their simply supported superstructures, and both have pier-wall-type
substructures.
The fault rupture occurred behind and under the northern abutments of both bridges. Both bridge
failed in different ways although they suffered similar ground motions. The first and second
spans of the older bridge (northbound) collapsed. This failure was due to the fault rupture, which
caused a large ground movement, pushing the superstructure back and forth until it fell down
from the "seats" on the piers. The bearings also failed due to large compression forces. The third
pier of the northbound bridge was uplifted also. Both superstructures may have collided during
the earthquake, causing some damage to the substructures. The piers of the northbound bridge
suffered tension cracking and fractured, and the southbound bridge piers had severe shear cracks
and failures. Figure 1 and 2 show some possibilities of structural failures.

(a) (b)
Figure 1. Damage to Wu-Shi Bridge (a) fault rupture (b) pier damage
Source: Hui Ying-Xin, 2015
 Figure 2. Damage to the Wu-Shi Bridge was caused by pier shearing and tension failure
Source: Yen Wen-Hui, 2002

Task 2
Lateral Deformation Capacity of Corroded RC Columns
Cheng et al. (2018) said that the calculation approaches for the deformation components
proposed for non-corroded columns are assumed to be applicable to those columns with corroded
rebars by introducing the deteriorated material mechanical properties of concrete and reinforcing
steel. The deformation of a cantilever column fixed into a column footing joint under lateral
loads can be shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Schematic diagram for the deformation of a cantilever column under lateral loads
Source: Lehman and Moehle, 2000

Considering on the moment curvature analysis of the cross section at the column base, the
deformation bending of a column can be achieved by integrating the curvature with the column
length and given as,
 H
∆ bending=∫ ɸ ( x ) x dx (1)
0

where H is the column length and ϕ(x) represents the curvature distribution at a distance x to the
top of the column structure.
However, to illustrate the transition from elastic to plastic, Equation (1) can be written back by
using the simplified plastic hinge length from Priestly and Park (1987) model which may be
expressed as,

{
∆ bending=
1
3
ɸ H 2∧ɸ< ɸ y
1
ɸ H 2+ ( ɸ−ɸ y ) L p (H − L p )ɸ≥ ɸ y
3 y 2
(2)

where ϕy is the section yield curvature at the column bottom calculated by a moment–curvature
analysis and Lp is the plastic hinge length. The contribution of slip deformation is assumed to be
a fixed‐end rotation arising from the slip of the longitudinal reinforcement out of the column
footing joint (Cheng, 2018; Sezen, 2008; Teng et al., 2016). Therefore, the slip rotation can be
described as,
Ust
θ slip ≈ (3)
d T −c

where dT denotes the distance between the extreme tensile steel bar and the extreme compression
fiber of concrete; c is the distance between the neutral axis and the extreme compression fiber of
concrete determined from section analysis and ust is the slip of a reinforcing bar embedded in
concrete
Figure 4 shows that the slip is assumed to occur in bars under tension.

Figure 4. Strain and stress distribution of the perfect bond section

Source: Cheng, 2018

Modelling of Corroded Reinforcement

Ngoc Son (2016) explained the average cross-sectional area of corroded reinforcement can be
estimated as:
 π Do2 X
A s ( X corr )=
4 (
1− corr
100 ) (4)

W o−W 1
X corr = ∗100 (5)
Wo

where Xcorr, in Equation (5), is the corrosion level (as a percentage) which can be estimated based
on the experimental measurement of the mass loss.
When the experimental cannot be conducted, then the level of corrosion can be predicted as
following equations,

D o2−D c 2
X corr = ∗100 (6)
D o2
−1.64
w
Dc =Do −
1.0508 1−( c ) ( t−T corr )
0.71 (7)
dc

where Do, Dc are the diameters of the non-corroded and corroded rebars, respectively. T corr is the
starting time of corrosion and t is the time after corrosion starts.
The corrosion of reinforced concrete results in the properties degradation of confined core
concrete, especially the maximum strength and the ultimate strain which can be estimated when
the transverse confining reinforcement fractures (Ngoc Son, 2016). Figure 5 shows some of the
constitutive model of reinforced concrete columns.
 Figure 5. Constitutive model for: (a) Cover concrete under compression and (b) Tension; (c) Confined
core concrete under compression; (d) Steel reinforcement; (e) Local bond stress-slip relationship
Source: Ngoc Son, 2016

Higher corrosion level and higher axial load lead to more severely degradation behavior of
reinforced concrete columns. When there is an increase in the corrosion level, the yield plateau
region tend to decrease. These properties also can be seen in Figure 6.
Figure 6. Load versus strain with different levels of corrosion (where ɳ s is corrosion level as a percentage)
Source: Cheng, 2018

Task 4
Procedure for estimating seismic safety of existing bridges in marine environment
Firstly, we need to determine the condition of the concrete by doing a visual inspection in the
field. After that with we can measure the degree of deterioration based on Figure 7.

Figure 7. Inspection of state of corrosion according to degree of deterioration

Source: Shimomura, 2011

The state of corrosion is investigated by inspection method shown in Figure 7. The accuracy of
inspection depends on method of inspection, setting of control volume and number of samples.
Shimomura (2011) said that if the degree of deterioration is middle, in particular, number of
samples might be of great importance because state of reinforcement corrosion embedded in
concrete in this case is difficult to be confirmed. On the other hand, if the structure heavily
deteriorated, it is relatively easy to grasp state of corrosion since most concrete cover is already
spalled off. After doing some inspection, then we need to estimate the cause of deterioration in
marine environment (usually from chloride attack). Afterwards, we can perform modelling

service life of the structures based on the codes to estimate the bridge safety.
Figure 8. Procedure for estimating the seismic safety of existing bridges in marine environment

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2006) showed the process of
modelling service life of the structures, therefore, requires the following:
1. Calculating the chloride ion content at the surface of the concrete (Co)
2. Calculating the rate of transport from the surface to the steel. This is the rate of diffusion
of the chloride ions into concrete and is designated by the use of a coefficient termed the
diffusion coefficient (D)
3. Determining the critical chloride concentration required to initiate corrosion. This is
referred to as the corrosion threshold (CT)
4. Estimating the time to corrosion initiation. This is the age at which corrosion initiates on
the reinforcing steel (Ti)
5. Estimating the time from corrosion initiation to first cracking, followed by delamination
and spalling (Tp)
6. Estimating the time from first damage (Td), which equals Ti + Tp
We can conduct the seismic safety of existing bridges with deterministic and probabilistic
indicators. For instance, system reliability measures, such as the probability of failure or the
reliability index, are adequate for quantifying the safety of a structure with respect to ultimate
limit states, but the system redundancy index is required to evaluate the availability of warning
before a system’s failure (Frangopol, 2017). Additionally, Sarkis (2018) said that performance
indicators related to damage tolerance of structures, such as vulnerability and robustness are
essential to consider for bridges under deterioration together with the indicators related to system
safety. Furthermore, Figure 8 shows all of the process on estimating the seismic safety of
existing bridges.
To determine the remaining service life, a criterion must be defined in the form of percentage of
surface damage that can be sustained by the concrete element prior to requiring major repair and
rehabilitation. ACI 365.1R has proposed a method for predicting the remaining service lives of
concrete structures and usually involve:
1. Determining the condition of the concrete
2. Identifying the causes of any concrete degradation
3. Determining the condition constituting the end-of-service life of the concrete
4. Making some type of time extrapolation from the present state of the concrete to the end-
of-service life state to establish the remaining service life
And also to perform time-dependent reliability analysis for bridges subjected to corrosion, three
aspects of work need to be conducted (Frangopol, Kallen & Van Noortwijk, 2004), developing
corrosion model, estimating corrosion effect and determining limit state functions and using
time-dependent reliability methods to make service life prediction.
In order to estimate the remaining lifetime of corroded RC bridges considering the time-
dependent performance, therefore, we can use time-dependant reliability theory as shown in
Equation (8) and Figure 9. Time-dependent reliability analysis can be carried out by various
methods, such as time-integrated method, discretised method, monte carlo simulation, safety
index method and outcrossing method (Melchers, 1999).

pf =P [ G ( t ) ≤ 0 ]=P[R ( t )−Sl ( t)≤ 0] (8)

where R(t) and Sl(t) denote the resistance at the time t and the load (or its effect), respectively.
 Figure 9. Time-dependent reliability problem
Source: Melchers, 1999

Task 5
In my honest opinion, this short course is hard to understand, I need more references or time to
learn. Maybe Professor Akiyama could explain with simple approach or could use some example
calculation so that I could understand to perform this theory. Thank you very much in advance
Professor for this short course, because I learn a lot from this course.

References
ACI Committee Report: ACI 365. 1R Service-Life Prediction (2005).
Cheng, Hu & Li, Hong-Nan & Wang, Dongsheng. (2018). Prediction for lateral deformation
capacity of corroded reinforced concrete columns. The Structural Design of Tall and
Special Buildings. 28. e1560. 10.1002/tal.1560.
D. E. Lehman, J. P. Moehle, Seismic performance of well‐confined concrete bridge columns.
College of Engineering, University of California, Pacific Earthquake Engineering
Research Center, Berkeley 2000.
Frangopol D, Saydam D. Structural Performance Indicators for Bridges. Bridge
Engineering Handbook: Fundamentals 2017, 185-205
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