Structures 40 (2022) 1056–1064

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Structures
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A deep learning-aided seismic fragility analysis method for bridges

Mengge Wang a, Hao Zhang a, *, Hongzhe Dai b, Luming Shen a
a
School of Civil Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
b
School of Civil Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Bridges are critical but vulnerable components in a transportation network as they are exposed to the threats
Seismic induced by long-term aging effects as well as natural hazards such as earthquakes. The traditional seismic
Fragility analysis fragility analysis is associated with high computational cost, making it infeasible for the cases requiring multiple
Structural Reliability
fragility analyses, such as evaluating time-dependent seismic fragility for deteriorating facilities, or a trans-
Probabilistic analysis
Deep Learning
portation network involving many bridges. In this study, a deep learning-aided seismic fragility analysis method
Neural Networks is proposed to improve the computational efficiency. Fragility analysis is transformed into a binary classification
problem. An improved deep neural network classification algorithm with a new activation function is proposed
and benchmarked with traditional deep neural networks and other machine learning counterparts. The accuracy
and the robustness of the new method are demonstrated by examples.

1. Introduction
As a key component of transportation networks, bridges play crucial
roles in maintaining the accessibility of a region. The damage or failure
of bridges may lead to potential catastrophic life loss and massive eco-
nomic loss. The importance of seismic fragility assessment for bridges
has been highlighted for many decades. To quantitatively evaluate the
damage loss and seismic performance of bridges, fragility curves are
typically constructed, which are defined as a conditional probability
providing the likelihood of a component or a structure meeting or
exceeding a certain level of damage for a given ground motion intensity
(IM). Seismic fragility curves provide a reliable reference on the retrofit,
loss evaluation and post-event prediction and inspection for bridge
owners and decision makers [22,27,28].
Various approaches for seismic fragility analysis for civil facilities
were developed in the literatures, including expert-based approaches,
empirical-based approaches based on observed damage from historic
earthquakes, and the most widely used analytical approaches using
numerical simulations accounting for the uncertainties from ground
motion and structural properties [2,3,7,26,35]. The analysis-based
fragility method generates seismic fragility curves through a series of
non-linear time history analysis (NLTHA) of the bridges under different
ground motion intensities. A suite of ground motions is paired with the
same numbers of bridge simulations, then the non-linear time history
analysis for each ground motion-bridge pair is conducted. The peak
structural responses for key components are recorded for generating the
probabilistic seismic demand model. The fragility curves then can be
obtained comparing the seismic demand and structural capacity models.
The seismic demand analysis generally requires performing repetitive
costly three-dimensional non-linear time history analyses. The high
computational cost leads to some limitations when dealing with com-
plex engineering problems, such as generating time-dependent seismic
fragility curves for deteriorating facilities considering aging effects
along the service life, and moreover, conducting seismic vulnerability
assessment for a transportation network with many bridges. The high
demand of computation cost of such problems makes it time-consuming
and impractical with the traditional NLTHA-based fragility
methodologies.
To address the issue of computational cost, statistical learning
techniques were introduced into the fragility analysis to replace the non-
linear time-history analysis process, providing surrogate models for the
“true” seismic demand of bridges [9]. Polynomial probabilistic seismic
demand models were developed which are conditioned on ground mo-
tion intensity IM, with considering the median of demand as a contin-
uous function of the IM based on the regression of the simulation
responses [5,8,21,27]. Some researchers developed multi-parameter
demand models and generated parameterized fragility curves for
bridges using the response surface models and logistic regression

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: mwan6678@uni.sydney.edu.au (M. Wang), hao.zhang@sydney.edu.au (H. Zhang), hzdai@hit.edu.cn (H. Dai), luming.shen@sydney.edu.au
(L. Shen).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.istruc.2022.04.058
Received 22 November 2021; Received in revised form 12 April 2022; Accepted 20 April 2022
Available online 5 May 2022
2352-0124/© 2022 Institution of Structural Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
M. Wang et al.
Fig. 1. Typical architecture of a neural network.
techniques [6,30,33]. Seo and Linzell [33] used statistical screening
approach to identify the critical range for key components of bridges and
developed multi-parameter fragility curves. Kameshwar and Padgett
[15] developed a multi-hazard parameterized fragility function for
bridges. The stepwise logistic regression techniques and a sequential
forward selection scheme were conducted to generate fragility curves. A
multi-span simply supported reinforced concrete (RC) bridge was stud-
ied to demonstrate the approach. Jeon, Mangalathu, Song, and Des-
roches [13] developed a multi-parameter fragility estimation using
Bayesian framework including the selection of bridge class, bridge at-
tributes and the variation of geometric parameters. The multi-parameter
fragility curves were developed using Bayesian parameter estimation
approach and logistic regression techniques. Pang, Dang, and Yuan [29]
developed an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) based approach to
generate fragility curves for bridges. Mangalathu, Heo, and Jeon [23]
applied artificial neural networks in the development of multi-
parameter seismic fragility curves for skewed concrete bridge class,
considering the variation in number of spans, number of seat abutments,
column bents and different degree of skew angles.
In the present study, an efficient and advanced deep learning-based
fragility estimation methodology is developed for the seismic fragility
assessment of bridges. To address the limitations and problems of the
existing deep neural networks (DNN), a new improved activation
function, referred to as DLog (double log function), is proposed. The
outperformance of the proposed activation function is evaluated
through experiments and benchmarks. Based on the proposed DLog
activation function, a DNN-based fragility framework is developed.
Numerical tests and examples were carried out on the proposed meth-
odology to evaluate and validate its performance against traditional
non-linear time history-based fragility approach.
2. An improved activation function for deep neural networks
For highly repetitive analyses, deep learning models can be good
surrogates with high accuracy and efficiency. The mechanism of
generating fragility curves using deep learning can be simply regarded
as a decision-making process, which compares demand with capacity to
classify whether the bridge exceeds the limit state or not. Hence, the
complicated problem can be transformed into a binary classification
problem that for each damage state, a case is categorized into a 0 or 1
class, respectively representing exceeding or not exceeding the limit
state.
A typical neural network generally consists of multiple layers as
shown in Fig. 1, which includes an input layer which receives the input
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Structures 40 (2022) 1056–1064
data and start to learn, an output layer which outputs prediction, and
multiple hidden layers in between which perform a series of filtering,
delivering, and mapping operations. There are generally multiple neu-
rons in each layer. These neurons are connected and convert input data
into output data by performing an activation operation. The connections
between the neurons are realized by weights, which can determine the
learning ability of a neural network. All weights between two layers
consists of the weight matrix. A Neural Network learn in both forward
and reverse direction. For forward propagation, the input vector X goes
through neurons and being operated through activation functions.
Activation functions are key components of deep neural networks,
which can greatly influence the performance of a model. The activation
function can be regarded as a “gate” between the input of the current
neuron and its output to the next layer, as it is connected to each neuron
and determines whether the neuron should be activated or not based on
the input information [25]. The mathematical mechanism of a neural
network with single hidden layer can be expressed as:
Y = f (Xw1 + b1 )w2 + b2 (1)
where X is an i-dimensional row vector of model input. Y is the k-
dimensional output vector of the hidden layer. w1 and b1 are the weight
matrix and bias vector of the former layer in size i × j and 1 × j,
respectively. w2 and b2 are the weight matrix and bias vector of the
current layer in size j × k and 1 × k, respectively. Xw1 +b1 represents the
output of the former layer. f(•) is the activation function used in the
corresponding neuron. Eq. (1) shows the working mechanism of the
activation function for a single hidden layer, which can be generalized to
deep neural network with multi hidden layers by adding more sets of
weight and bias matrixes in the same way. For a deep neural network
with multiple hidden layers, the output of each activation function is
transformed by a new weight matrix and bias matrix, then being used to
feed the activation functions in the next layer.
The difference between the prediction vector computed from the
forward propagation and the actual label can be measured by defining a
loss function. Using the loss function, the loss of the forward training can
be calculated, and the performance can be evaluated. The smaller the
loss, the better the model.
As introduced, activation function is a key component of deep neural
networks, which largely influences the output, accuracy, convergence,
and the computational efficiency of training a model. There are various
non-linear activation functions used in Neural Networks. The existing
activation functions have some limitations, including the vanishing
gradient problem, the neuron saturation problem, the dying neuron
M. Wang et al. Structures 40 (2022) 1056–1064

Fig. 4. Testing accuracy vs numbers of layers for TanH, ReLU and DLog.

Fig. 2. Common activation functions.

Fig. 5. Testing accuracy vs numbers of neurons for TanH, ReLU and DLog.

domain of the function as shown in Fig. 2. The monotonic and contin-

Fig. 3. Derivative of common activation functions.
problem, and the gradient explosion problem [31]. These limitations
and drawbacks will largely influence the classification accuracy, model
robustness and eventually the reliability of the seismic fragility curves
generated using deep-learning algorithms. In this paper, a new activa-
tion function, referred to as DLog, is proposed to address the limitations
of existing activation functions and improve the performance of deep
neural networks. Constructed based on double log function, DLog is a
piecewise function expressed as:
{ functions, the training generally becomes more efficient as the pattern
−ln(1 − x)x < 0
y= (2)
ln(x + 1)x ≥ 0.
DLog is monotonic and continuously differentiable in the domain of
the function. The derivative of Dlog is given by:
⎧ its computational efficiency to enable picking up a full range of neurons.
⎪ 1
⎪
⎨ x<0
1−x
y’ = (3)
⎩ 1 x ≥ 0.
⎪
⎪ fragility analyses.
1+x
The proposed DLog function and other common activation functions,
i.e., Sigmoid, ReLU and TanH functions are plotted in Fig. 2. The de-
rivatives of these activation functions are plotted in Fig. 3.
DLog has some desirable properties, including monotonic, continu-
ously differentiable, bounded for its derivative, unbounded and zero-
centred. DLog is monotonic and continuously differentiable in the
uously differentiable property is desirable for enabling gradient-based
optimization methods. The error surface can be convex if the activa-
tion function is monotonic. The derivative of DLog, as shown in Fig. 3, is
symmetric about the y axis. The derivative of DLog is within the range of
(0, 1), so the gradient explosion can be avoided. Moreover, compared
with the derivative of Sigmoid which is in a near 0 range of (0, 0.25), and
the derivative of TanH which sharply decreases to near zero, DLog shows
a more stable and gradual decrease in the value of its derivative, thus
improving the vanishing gradients problems of Sigmoid and TanH. DLog
is unbounded and zero-centred. The unboundedness property is desir-
able for an activation function as it can avoid the neuron saturation
problems due to near-zero gradients [10]. With unbounded activation
presentations greatly influence most weights. The zero-centred DLog
activation function improves the dying neuron problem of ReLU, as its
derivative for negative inputs is not 0 or a constant, but depends on the
input. In order to bypass the dying neuron problem, DLog may sacrifice
Therefore, DLog is particularly suitable for building models which have
a limited size of dataset but require high accuracy, such as in seismic
3. Experiments and benchmarks of DLog
To quantitatively evaluate the performance of DLog, four compari-
son experiments are conducted on the MNIST database. Evolved from
the original NIST datasets [11], MNIST database is a commonly used
database of handwritten digits for training image processing models,
which contains 70,000 image data. In the following experiments, the

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Table 1
Testing accuracy (in %) of different activation functions on four datasets.
Activation Func. MNIST IMDB Reuters CIFAR10

Sigmoid 94.61 87.15 69.32 73.97

TanH 96.17 87.69 77.96 72.53
ReLU 97.28 88.04 77.03 77.64
LReLU 97.34 87.20 78.32 78.52
PreLU 97.45 88.12 78.02 78.24
ELU 97.42 87.58 77.92 77.46
SELU 97.46 87.17 76.71 77.92
Softplus 97.52 88.24 75.2 78.55
Softsign 96.76 86.94 77.78 75.74
DLog 97.59 88.75 78.45 78.72

showed consistently higher prediction accuracy and more stability when

Fig. 6. Testing accuracy vs batch size for TanH, ReLU and DLog.
changing the batch size and dropout rate of the neural networks.
To further demonstrate the proposed DLog activation function, a
series of benchmark tests were conducted to compare DLog against the
three classical activation functions (Sigmoid, TanH and ReLU) and six
more recently proposed activation functions, i.e.:

• Softplus [24]:
f (x) = ln(1 + ex ) (4)

• Softsign [10]:
x
f (x) = (5)
1 + |x|

• Leaky ReLU (LReLU) [20]:

{
0.01xifx < 0
f (x) = (6)
Fig. 7. Testing accuracy vs dropout rate for TanH, ReLU and DLog. xifx ≥ 0

MNIST database is separated into three datasets, with 70% data for • Parametric ReLU (PReLU) [12]:
training dataset, 15% for validation dataset and 15% for testing dataset. {
The commonly used activation functions TanH and ReLU are employed αxifx < 0
f (α, x) = (7)
as baselines in the experiments. Four experiments are designed based on xifx ≥ 0
varying individual hyper-parameter of the network and maintaining where, α is a learnable parameter and initialized to 0.25.
other parameters constant. The first two experiments vary the depths
and scale of the neural network. In the first experiment, the number of • Exponential Linear Unit (ELU) [4]:
hidden layers varies from 20 to 40. In the second experiment, the {
number of neurons in each layer of the network varies from 200 to 1000. α(ex − 1)ifx < 0
f (x) = (8)
The third and fourth experiments are conducted based on varying the xifx ≥ 0
batch size from 32 to 2048 and increasing the dropout rate [34] from
20% to 50% for each layer, respectively. The prediction accuracy of α = 1.0
TanH, ReLU and DLog for these four experiments are plotted in Figs. 4-7.
From Figs. 4-7, it can be observed that DLog consistently outperforms
ReLU and TanH when changing different hyper-parameters in the neural
network. From Fig. 4, when increasing layers from 20 to 35, the accu- • Scaled Exponential Linear Unit (SELU) [17]:
racy of ReLU and TanH deteriorates by 60% and 80%, respectively. On {
α(ex − 1)ifx < 0
the other hand, the accuracy of DLog remains stable with increasing f (x) = λ (9)
xifx ≥ 0
layers; the accuracy is 80% when the number of layers is increased to 35.
Fig. 5 shows that when shrinking a network with decreasing neuron where, α ≈ 1.6733 and λ ≈ 1.0507.
numbers of each layer from 1000 to 200, DLog has shown a decrease of The benchmark of DLog against the nine baseline activation func-
accuracy from 97.66% to 97.23%, while ReLU and TanH have shown a tions are performed on four representative datasets: MNIST, IMDB Re-
decrease of accuracy from 97.47% to 96.91% and from 96.74% to view [19], Reuters Newswire [14]and CIFAR10 [18]datasets. MNIST
95.5%, respectively. The results of Figs. 4 and 5 indicate that compared and CIFAR10 are commonly used databases for training image pro-
with TanH and ReLU, DLog showed higher prediction accuracy, higher cessing classification models, which contains 70,000 image data in 10
stability, and robustness when the networks become deeper and larger. classes and 60,000 image data in 10 classes, respectively. IMDB Review
From Fig. 6, when increasing the batch size from 32 to 2048, the dete- and Reuters Newswire are commonly used datasets for training natural
rioration of accuracy of DLog is significantly less than TanH, and slightly language processing classification models, which contains 50,000 text
better than ReLU. Fig. 7 shows that when increasing the dropout rate data in 100 classes and 11,228 text data in 46 classes, respectively. For
from 40% to 50%, the accuracy of ReLU and TanH decrease by 10% and fair comparison, all the benchmarks are conducted by only changing the
1.8%, respectively, while the accuracy of DLog has decreased by only activation function in the architecture of the neural network while all
0.45%. The results indicate that, compared with ReLU and TanH, DLog

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M. Wang et al.
Fig. 8. The configuration of the MSC slab bridge, redrawn from ([26]).
the other hyper parameters remain constant. For MNIST, IMDB Review
and Reuters Newswire datasets, 10 layers fully connected networks are
used with Adaptive Moment Estimation (Adam) [16] as the optimization
algorithm. For CIFAR 10, convolutional neural networks are used as this
dataset possess more complicated features. It should be noted that all the
testing results are determined by the median of five different runs. The
testing results for different activation functions are compared in Table 1.
The results in Table 1 show that DLog consistently outperformed
other activation functions in deep learning algorithms with higher ac-
curacy on different datasets, including image classification datasets
MNIST and CIFAR10, and natural language processing datasets IMDB
Review and Reuters Newswire.
4. A deep neural network-based seismic fragility analysis
framework
Based on the proposed DLog activation function, a DNN framework is
developed in this study to perform seismic fragility analysis. The
methodology is applicable for fragility analysis of individual bridges, as
well as bridge classes. In the latter case, the key parameters of the bridge
class vary in prescribed ranges.
The methodology can be separated into 3 stages, which are the data
generation stage, model training stage and the fragility curve generation
stage. Each stage consists of several steps. The major steps of the pro-
posed methodology are discussed below.
Stage 1: Data generation
The first stage of the framework is to generate and prepare data for
the training of models in the next stage. It is similar to the traditional
analytical fragility curve generation procedure, consisting of the
following steps:
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Structures 40 (2022) 1056–1064
1. Select a suite of ground motions and sample corresponding numbers
of bridges. To improve sampling efficiency, Latin hypercube sam-
pling method can be applied to sample bridge parameters, consid-
ering the uncertainties and variations in bridge geometry and
material characteristics.
2. Perform incremental dynamic analysis with scaling the ground mo-
tion intensity index from 0 to 1 to obtain seismic demands and record
the required seismic responses of structural components such as the
maximum curvature of columns.
3. Compare the seismic demands with structural capacity and get a 0 or
1 result as a label for each run, representing whether the corre-
sponding damage state has been reached or not.
Stage 2: Model training
1. Pre-process all the data which include input data such as bridge
geometric and material parameters and ground motion parameters,
and output data which are the 0 and 1 labels. The entire dataset is
split into three sets, a training set, a validation set and a test set, e.g.,
70%, 15% and 15% of the total data, respectively.
2. Design and construct a deep neural network by specifying the depth,
dimensionality, activation functions, loss functions, optimization
functions and other components of the network.
3. Train the constructed model for each damage state using the training
set and cross validate the model using validation set to find the
optimal hyperparameters. After the validation, the final evaluation is
carried out on the test set.
Stage 3: Fragility curve generation
M. Wang et al. Structures 40 (2022) 1056–1064

Table 2 Appendix C of Nielson [26].

Parameters considered for the variation of bridge geometric and material Table 2 summarizes the parameters of the example bridge (geometry
characteristics. and material characteristics). For each parameter, a lower bound and an
Bridge Description Units upper lower upper bound are specified; the ranges are assumed typical for this class
Parameters level level of bridge [26].
L Span length mm 10,000 40,000
B Deck width mm 6000 15,000
5.1. Data generation
Hcol Column height mm 4000 10,000
Dcol Column diameter mm 1000 2000
Dbar Column reinforcements mm 10 35 The data generation stage aims to provide data obtained from the
diameter non-linear time history analysis for training the deep neural network
Tb Thickness of elastomeric mm 30 80 models. To build the dataset, both the ground motion intensity IM and
bearing pads
bridge modelling parameters are needed. In this study, peak ground
ρl Longitudinal reinforcement % 1.5 3.0
ratio acceleration (PGA) is selected as the IM. Bridge modelling parameters
ρt Transverse reinforcement ratio % 1.5 3.0 consist of bridge geometric parameters, material parameters and some
fc Concrete compressive strength MPa 30 40 other modelling parameters. In this study, to propagate the uncertainties
fy Reinforcing steel yield strength MPa 300 500
associated with ground motion characteristics in generating seismic
μb Coefficient of friction for – 0.5 1.5
elastomeric bearing pads
fragility curves, 240 ground motion records are selected from the PEER
εu Concrete ultimate compressive – 0.0015 0.0025 Ground Motion Database [32] according to the ground motion selection
strain reported in [1]. 240 three-dimensional bridge samples are generated
m Mass factor – 0.9 1.1 through Latin Hypercube sampling method, assuming that the param-
ζ Damping ratio – 0.02 0.08
eters in Table 2 are uniformly distributed between the lower bound and
the upper bound.
1. Input a new set of data into the well-trained model with varying the A non-linear time history analysis is conducted for each pair of
scale of ground motion intensities from 0 to 1, and run the model to ground motion and bridge sample, and the seismic responses of key
get a set of predicted outputs 0/1 for each damage state. bridge components are recorded and collected. Specifically, the curva-
2. Record the failure probability at different ground motion intensity ture ductility ratio of RC columns and the deformation of the elastomeric
for each damage state and plot the scatter points to generate the bearing pads are considered. The capacity models of the two responses
fragility curves of the bridge. corresponding to four damage states (slight, moderate, extensive and
complete damages) are adopted from [26]. The seismic demands are
5. Example compared with the capacity models, and 0 or 1 results are obtained as
labels for each run, representing whether the seismic demand exceeds
A typical class of multi-span continuous (MSC) reinforced concrete the corresponding damage state or not.
slab bridge is adopted from [26], as it is one of the most common bridge
classes in use and among the most vulnerable bridges to ground motions. 5.2. Model training
Shown in Fig. 8, the MSC RC slab bridge class has three spans, with the
three spans having the same length. The end spans are supported by a Deep neural networks learn from input data and map it to the out-
pile-type abutment and a double-column bent, while the centre span is puts; thus, the scale and distribution of the data may greatly influence
supported fully by two double-column bents. The double-column bents the performance of the models. For a dataset, generally different input
are held up by two circular reinforced concrete columns connected to variables have different units and scales, which may lead to unstable
individual pile foundations. Between the superstructure and substruc- models and poor performance in learning. Therefore, the pre-processing
ture, the elastomeric bearing pads are used to connect them and transfer transformations of input data is essential. In this study, the Log trans-
loads in between. formation algorithm was applied as the data pre-processing techniques,
Three-dimensional finite element models of the bridge components which can be expressed as:
are developed using the finite element software OpenSEES. The finite
element modelling of the bridge is adopted from Nielson [26]. The su- y = ln(δ + λx)/ln(max(x)) (10)
perstructure of the bridge is modelled with elastic beam-column ele-
where λ and δ are determined by the scale and skewness of the variables.
ments, as the superstructure is considered to remain linearly elastic
The Log transformation algorithm has several advantages over other
under seismic ground motions. The columns are modelled using the
pre-process techniques in the application of the fragility curve genera-
displacement-based, fibre-type beam elements to model the hysteretic
tion. Firstly, the Log transformation algorithm is applicable for the
behaviour of the members. The fibre-type beam element has the
damage states classification, as all the input parameters for bridge ge-
advantage of specifying various material properties across the cross
ometry and material are positive values. Secondly, Log transformation
section of the member. The elastomeric bearing pad is modelled using
performs well for skewed data, as the input parameters are highly
elastic perfectly plastic material. The initial stiffness and the coefficient
concentrated. For large range of data, smaller values might get over-
of friction of the bearing are computed according to Nielson [26]. To
whelmed by the larger values, so taking the log of each variable enables
model the moment and force transfer between members, the double-
the data distributed more evenly. Additionally, Log transformation can
column concrete bents are modelled with a combination of displace-
de-emphasize outliers and enable to transform the variables into a bell-
ment beam elements (for the bent beam) and rigid links for connecting
shaped distribution.
the bent beam and the columns. The effect of the pile bent abutment is
The pre-processed dataset is then split into three sets, a training set, a
modelled using nonlinear springs in both the longitudinal and transverse
validation set and a test set, which accounts for 70%, 15% and 15%,
directions. The compressive behaviour of the abutment springs includes
respectively. Then it comes to the design and construction of the deep
the resistance of the soil and the piles; for the tensile behaviour of the
neural network stage. The deep neural network is constructed for
abutment springs, only the contribution of the piles is included. The pile
damage state prediction purpose. The classifier is constructed with ten
foundations are modelled using elastic translational and rotational
hidden layers’ networks with consistent decreasing neurons in each
springs to capture the translational and rotational stiffness of the pile
hidden layer and 20% dropout for each layer. In this study, the proposed
cap. Details of the models of the bridge components can be found in
DLog is used as the activation functions in each hidden layer and

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Table 3 Sigmoid is used as the activation function in output layer.

Testing accuracy of various machine learning models for the four damage states. The difference between the prediction vector computed from the
Models Slight Moderate Extensive Complete Average forward propagation to the actual label is defined by a loss function.
Using the loss function, the loss of the forward training can be calcu-
Logistic Regression 0.906 0.894 0.868 0.828 0.874
Random Forest 0.79 0.86 0.864 0.746 0.815 lated, and the performance can be evaluated. By minimizing the loss
Naïve Bayes 0.884 0.88 0.864 0.834 0.866 function, the weight parameters learn and are updated to the optimal. In
Support Vector 0.888 0.904 0.882 0.844 0.880 this study, the binary cross-entropy loss function is used, as previous
Machine studies have suggested the high performance of binary cross-entropy
K Nearest Neighbour 0.866 0.882 0.89 0.866 0.876
Dlog-Deep Neural 0.986 0.97 0.954 0.934 0.961
loss function for binary classification problems [25]. The method to
Network minimize the loss function is achieved by using optimization algorithms
performed in the reverse direction. In terms of optimization, gradient
descent is one of the most used algorithms to optimize neural networks.

Fig. 9. ROC curves for DLog-based DNN and other machine learning methods.

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The objective of performing gradient descent is to minimize the loss

function L(θ) by updating the parameters of the model in the opposite
direction of the gradient of L(θ) with respect to the weights that need to
be adjusted. The general form of how gradient descent works can be
expressed as:
wt+1 = wt − αgt (11)
in which wt is the weight before being optimized at the t-th iteration,
wt+1 is the weight after being optimized at t-th iteration, α is the learning
rate which represents how quickly or how slowly the parameters update,
∂L(yi ,ht (xi ))
gt is the gradient of the parameters at the t-th iteration ∂wt with
respect to wt . After each gradient descent step and weight update, the
current weights of the network get closer to the optimal weights. With
repeated iteration and updates, optimal values can be reached for the
entire neural network and further predictions can be made.
In this example, the Adaptive Moment Estimation (Adam) [16]
optimization function is adopted as expressed in Eqs. (12–14),
1 mt Fig. 10. Fragility curves developed by the DNN-based method and the tradi-
wt+1 = wt − α √̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅ t (12)
vt
1−βt2
+ ε 1 − β1 tional NLTHA method.

mt = β1 mt−1 + (1 − β1 )gt (13)

Table 4
Median and dispersion values of fragility curves for all damage states using DNN
vt = β2 vt−1 + (1 − β2 )g2t (14) and traditional NLTHA methods.
Damage State DNN NLTHA
where mt and vt are estimated of the first moment and the second
moment of the gradients respectively. β1 and β2 are constants usually Slight median 0.32 0.33
taken as 0.9 and 0.99, respectively. dispersion 0.52 0.54
Moderate median 0.46 0.47
To evaluate the performance of the proposed DLog-based DNN
dispersion 0.49 0.52
versus other traditional machine learning and original deep learning Extensive median 0.63 0.62
classification algorithms, five commonly used traditional machine dispersion 0.55 0.51
learning classification models are tested as baselines, including Logistic Complete median 0.76 0.79
dispersion 0.50 0.56
Regression, Random Forest, Naïve Bayes, Support Vector Machine and K
Nearest Neighbour. Then the benchmarks are performed to the DLog-
based DNN compared with the traditional methods on the generated 5.3. Fragility curves
dataset. The testing accuracy for each damage state is recorded based on
the median of five runs as shown in Table 3. The average accuracy for To validate the proposed method, the seismic fragility curves of a
the four damage states is also listed in the table. specific MSC RC slab bridge are developed using the proposed DLog-
From Table 3, it can be seen that the proposed DLog based deep based DNN method, and compared with those obtained using the
neural network model consistently outperforms all other candidates for traditional NLTH-based fragility method. The geometry and material
different damage states on the generated dataset. The average accuracy parameters of the bridge are the average values of the lower bounds and
of DLog DNN is 10% higher than those of the other five machine learning upper bounds given in Table 2. The fragility curves obtained from the
candidates. developed DNN method are plotted in Fig. 10 and compared with the
To validate the performance of the constructed DLog DNN model, the curves obtained from the traditional NLTH method. The median and
Receiver Operator Characteristic (ROC) curves are used in these tests. dispersion values for all four damage states are given in Table 4 for the
ROC curves are frequently used to measure the classification ability of a two methods.
binary classifier. An ROC curve is constructed by plotting the true pos- The plots show that the fragility curves generated by the proposed
itive rate against the false positive rate. The area under curve (AUC) is a DLog-based DNN are very close to the fragility curves generated by the
measure of the performance and usefulness of a binary classifier. A traditional methods. Table 4 also confirms the accuracy of the proposed
greater AUC represents a higher classification ability, and an AUC of 1 method; the average difference of median values between the two
represents a perfect classification. Hence, the performance of different methods is 1.6%, and the dispersion values vary by 3.8%.
classifiers can be evaluated and compared based on the AUC. The ROC The example elaborated in this section showed that the proposed
curves of the constructed DLog based DNN are compared with the five deep neural network-based fragility analysis framework in this study
selected machine learning models. The AUC for each damage state is agrees with the NLTHA-based method reasonably well for multi-span
recorded on the plots as shown in Fig. 9. continuous reinforced concrete slab bridge. It should be noted that
From the plots, it can be observed that the proposed DLog based DNN further studies are needed to investigate the scalability and applicability
Model consistently outperforms all the machine learning counterparts of this framework on a variety of bridge types.
for all damage states on this dataset. Each ROC curve of DLog based DNN
has higher AUC than other counterparts. These results confirm that the 6. Conclusions
proposed DLog based DNN shows higher accuracy and better classifi-
cation ability over other machine learning models on the damage states This study proposed a deep neural network-based fragility analysis
prediction. framework for developing parameterised fragility curves of bridges. The
new activation function DLog can address the limitations of the existing
activation functions such as overfitting, neuron saturation and dying
neurons, and has shown outperformances in a set of benchmarks and

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tests. The proposed DNN-based fragility method transforms the fragility
analysis into a binary classification problem in which for each damage
state, a case is categorized into a 0 or 1 class, respectively representing
exceeding or not exceeding the limit state.
The proposed fragility method is demonstrated using an example of
multi-span continuous reinforced concrete slab bridge. The accuracy of
the DLog-based DNN is compared with other five machine learning-
based methods (logistic regression, random forest, naïve Bayes, Sup-
port Vector Machine, and K-Nearest Neighbour). It was found that the
average accuracy of the DLog-based DNN for model training of the four
damage states is 10% higher than those of the other five machine
learning candidates.
The fragility curves of the example bridge are then constructed using
the proposed DNN-aided fragility analysis and compared with the con-
ventional NLTHA-based fragility method. The example showed that the
new method agrees with the NLTHA-based method reasonably well. The
developed parameterised fragility curves can be used to efficiently
examine the effects of the variations in structural material properties
and geometric parameters on the structural fragility without re-analysis
for each additional set of parameters. This makes the method particu-
larly useful for sensitivity analysis of structural parameters on fragility,
or time-dependent fragility analysis of aging facilities considering the
degradation of structural resistance due to deterioration. The new
method also has the potential to be used for fragility analysis of bridge
networks with a group of similar bridges. The present method can be
used for this purpose for a relatively small region in which the spatial
variation of ground motion intensity can be ignored. For bridge net-
works in relatively large areas, the hazard intensity measure also needs
to be parametrised in the fragility model. This will be a future work.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
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