Practical approach to fragility analysis of bridges

Damages during past earthquakes reveal seismic vulnerability of bridge structures and the necessity of probabilistic approach toward seismic performance evaluation of bridges and its interpretation in terms of decision variables such as repair cost, downtime and life loss. This Procedure involves hazard analysis, structural analysis, damage analysis and loss analysis. The purpose of present study is reviewing different methods developed to derive fragility curves for damage analysis of bridges and demonstrating a simple procedure for fragility analysis using Microsoft Office Excel worksheet to reach probability of occurring predefined level of damage due to different levels of seismic demand parameters. The input of this procedure is the intensity of ground motion and the output is an appropriate estimate of the expected damage. Different observed damages of the bridges are discussed and compared the practical definition of damage states. Different methods of fragility analyses are discussed and a practical step by step example is illustrated. © Maxwell Scientific Organization, 2012.