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Revising seismic behaviour factors for reinforced concrete bridge design in the longitudinal direction using multi-objective evolutionary algorithms

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Abstract

Seismic behaviour factors represent the ratio between the strength of a structure, assuming it always maintains an elastic behaviour, and the strength demand with plastic behaviour and consequent loss of stiffness, at the seismic target displacement. This value is closely related to ductility and to energy dissipation due to hysteretic behaviour. The use of behaviour factors allows to design structures with elastic models, without having to explicitly account for material non-linearity while taking advantage of ductility. However, the definition of these values is not easy, and is dependent on several factors. In bridges, these factors can be, among others, regularity of the bridge in terms of pier height, concrete and steel quality, size of elements and amount of steel reinforcement, pier confinement, etc. These factors influence ductility demand and available ductility in different ways and through multi-objective optimization (MOO), the infrastructure solutions that maximize the use of the available ductility under a given earthquake action and for a given bridge superstructure, pier height scheme and ductility class according to Eurocode 8—part 2, can be obtained. Those optimized solutions, which are obtained through the minimization of steel and concrete in the piers as concurrent objectives, are associated with the maximum behaviour factors that can be used in the design of a given bridge and can be compared with the values recommended by EC8—part 2. Without loss of generality, the methodology is applied to a set of case-studies composed of RC bridges with four 30-m spans and circular piers, analysed in the longitudinal direction and without accounting for abutment effects. With the results from the MOO, the behaviour factors associated to solutions with different ductility levels and pier irregularity schemes are calculated and equations are derived, relating the obtained behaviour factors with a pier irregularity measure and ductility level. The results also show the importance of the choice of stiffness used in the design process.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge CERIS/DECivil from IST for all the support.

Funding

Vítor T. Camacho has a Grant [Grant Number PD/BD/127802/2016] from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CERIS, Department of Civil Engineering, Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Av. Rovisco Pais No 1, 1049-001, Lisbon, Portugal

    Vítor T. Camacho, Mário Lopes & Carlos S. Oliveira

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  1. Vítor T. Camacho
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  2. Mário Lopes
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  3. Carlos S. Oliveira
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Correspondence to Vítor T. Camacho.

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Camacho, V.T., Lopes, M. & Oliveira, C.S. Revising seismic behaviour factors for reinforced concrete bridge design in the longitudinal direction using multi-objective evolutionary algorithms. Bull Earthquake Eng 18, 925–951 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10518-019-00739-5

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