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Fragility analysis of tall pier bridges subjected to

near-fault pulse-like ground motions

Xu Chen, Jianzhong Li & Zhongguo Guan

To cite this article: Xu Chen, Jianzhong Li & Zhongguo Guan (2019): Fragility analysis of tall pier
bridges subjected to near-fault pulse-like ground motions, Structure and Infrastructure Engineering,
DOI: 10.1080/15732479.2019.1683589

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15732479.2019.1683589

Published online: 04 Nov 2019.

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STRUCTURE AND INFRASTRUCTURE ENGINEERING
https://doi.org/10.1080/15732479.2019.1683589

Fragility analysis of tall pier bridges subjected to near-fault pulse-like

ground motions
Xu Chena,b, Jianzhong Lic and Zhongguo Guanc
a
Shanghai Institute of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China; bDepartment of Civil Engineering,
Shanghai University, Shanghai, China; cState Key Laboratory of Disaster Reduction in Civil Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

More than 40% of bridges in Southwest China have piers over 40 m height. The seismic behaviour of Received 1 February 2019
these bridges is critical, especially exposed to near-fault pulse-like ground motions. This paper con- Revised 27 June 2019
ducts fragility analyses to assess the seismic vulnerability of tall pier bridges under near-fault motions. Accepted 25 July 2019
Fragility curves are developed for a typical 50-m tall pier and a 10 m conventional pier with probabilis-
KEYWORDS
tic seismic demand models (PSDMs). When developing the PSDMs, curvature ductility at pier base is Tall pier bridges; near-fault
used as the demand parameter; the 5% damped spectral acceleration of the fundamental period motions; seismic
(Sa(T1, 5%)) is employed as an intensity measure of the motions. Results show that the 50 m pier is performance; fragility
less vulnerable than the 10 m pier under both the near-fault and far-field motions and is unlikely to analysis; vulnerabil-
collapse in real earthquake events. Furthermore, the seismic fragility of the 50 m pier is found highly ity assessment
related to the pre-defined damage state capacities, indicating that the damage states should be
carefully specified to properly estimate the vulnerability of tall piers. Finally, analyses are conducted
for piers with heights of 40, 60, 70, and 80 m, extending the conclusions obtained from 50 m pier to a
class of tall piers.

1. Introduction analysis procedure. Besides the higher mode effects observed

Numerous highway bridges have been built or are under
construction in the mountainous areas of Southwest China
in recent years. Because of the rugged topography of the
region, more than 40% of these bridges contain piers with a
height over 40 m, with some exceeding 100 m. Southwest
China is known as a region of high seismicity, experiencing
many strong earthquakes (e.g., the magnitude 8.0
Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, and the magnitude 7.0
Lushan earthquake in 2013). As these bridges with tall piers
are key links in the local highway network, their seismic
performance and safety is of great concern.
For tall pier bridges, the large distributed pier mass can
lead to considerable seismic inertia forces; furthermore,
these tall piers are flexible, resulting in long fundamental
periods which are out of the range of the dominant energy
content of many seismic events. However, higher modes
may still make a significant contribution to the response
(Chopra, 2001). Some numerical investigations (Guan, Li,
Xu, & Lu, 2011; Tubaldi, Tassotti, Dall’Asta, & Dezi, 2014)
have proved that due to the higher-order modes of pier col-
umns, the distribution patterns of seismic forces differ sig-
nificantly from those for conventional piers; and an
additional plastic hinge might form at the mid-height of tall
piers as well. Moreover, Chen, Li, and Guan (2016) dis-
cussed the seismic performance of tall piers from the initial
yielding to the ultimate state using an incremental dynamic
in previous studies, the authors also pointed out that the
displacement at the pier top did not respond in phase with
the section curvature at the pier base for tall pier bridges.
This fact implies that the displacement at the pier top is an
invalid damage index for tall piers and that the section
curvature should be used instead.
The aforementioned conclusions from numerical analyses
were then validated by the shake table tests for tall pier sys-
tems conducted in Tongji University (Chen, Guan, Li, &
Spencer, 2018). Using a typical near-fault ground motion
(Rinaldi motion from 1994 Northridge earthquake) as input,
the results showed the formation of additional plastic hinge
at mid-height, and the appropriacy of utilising section
curvature as damage index. The results of these studies also
demonstrated that the seismic intensity for ultimate or col-
lapse state of tall piers was quite large and unlikely to be
reached during an earthquake event. Therefore, only focus-
ing on ultimate state was insufficient in engineering practice
for tall pier bridges; more damage states should be incorpo-
rated to better characterise their seismic behaviour.
Note that all these aforementioned studies in last para-
graph on tall piers mainly concentrated on the seismic per-
formance corresponding to far-field ground motions, on
which the current seismic design are based. However, the
influence of near-fault pulse-like motions was not consid-
ered, which has been recognised as the most severe and dev-
astating seismic loadings that structures undergo. To date,

CONTACT Zhongguo Guan guanzhongguo@tongji.edu.cn

ß 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 X. CHEN ET AL.
investigations have shown that due to the directivity
(Somerville, 2000) and fling effect (Wang, Zhou, Zhang, &
Igel, 2002), near-fault motions are mainly characterised by
significant velocity pulses (Mavroeidis & Papageorgiou,
2002). These features cause a moderate descending portion
of acceleration and velocity spectra of these pulse-like
motions, leading to greater seismic demands for structures
with long period such as isolated bridges (Cao & Li, 2019;
Li & Cao, 2015) and tall pier bridges (J onsson, Bessason, &
Haflidason, 2010).
Park et al. (2004) investigated the seismic performance of
the Bolu Viaduct in the Duzce, Turkey, earthquake of
November 1999. The authors pointed out that due to the
near-fault motions, excessive relative displacement between
the superstructure and the pier was observed at an early
stage of the earthquake, causing damage to the bearings and
energy dissipation units. Furthermore, with larger modal
acceleration values of higher modes, more significant
higher-mode effects might be observed in the case of tall
piers subjected to these near-fault motions. Thus, studies are
required investigating the seismic performance of tall pier
bridges located in near-fault regions of South-west China.
Seismic fragility analysis is an essential tool for investigat-
ing the vulnerability of bridge structures, offering a means
of communicating the probability of damage over a range of
potential earthquake ground motion intensities (Padgett &
DesRoches, 2008). To develop fragility functions, the rela-
tionship between peak seismic responses and ground motion
intensities is required, which is provided through probabilis-
tic seismic demand models (PSDMs). To obtain enough
data for PSDMs, the structural demands and/or capacities
can be estimated through various analytical methods such as
elastic spectral (Jernigan & Hwang, 2002; Shinozuka, Feng,
Kim, & Kim, 2000), nonlinear static (Dutta & Mander,
1998), and linear/nonlinear time-history (Kunnath, Larson,
& Miranda, 2006; Mackie & Stojadinovic, 2001).
An extensive amount of fragility analysis has been con-
ducted to assess the vulnerability of bridges structures to
date. For example, Kim and Feng (2003) conducted fragility
analysis for highway bridges subjected to ground motions
with spatial variation. The authors found that ductility
demands of bridge columns could be underestimated if the
bridge was analysed using identical support ground motions
rather than differential support motions. More recently,
Muntasir Billah and Alam (2015) conducted fragility ana-
lysis for concrete bridge piers whose plastic hinge region
was reinforced with super-elastic shape memory alloy
(SMA) considering various demand parameters. The results
showed that the vulnerability of bridge piers was signifi-
cantly affected by the selection of the seismic demand
parameters (EDP); when displacement ductility was
employed as EDP, the pier reinforced with SMA was more
vulnerable while the opposite phenomenon was observed
when residue drift was used. However, all these fragility
analyses are applied to conventional bridges with short-
to-medium piers subjected to far-filed motions on which
design specifications are based. To date, fragility analyses for
the seismic vulnerability of tall pier bridges, especially sub-
jected to near-fault motions, is not found in the literature.
This paper focuses on developing fragility-based seismic
vulnerability assessment for tall pier bridges when subjected
to near-fault motions. Four damage states are first defined
for tall piers, and the capacity for each damage state is rep-
resented in the form of maximum section curvature ductility
along the pier height. Then, using nonlinear time history
analysis (NTHA) procedure, the PSDMs are established for
both a typical bridge with piers of 50 m height located in
Southwest China and a conventional bridge with 10 m pier
when subjected to near-fault ground motions; while the
same procedure is conducted for a suite of far-field input
motions for comparison purpose. The results of both piers
are presented in a probabilistic format of fragility curves
based on the PSDMs, focusing on the seismic vulnerability
of the 50 m pier for near-fault motions. Similar analyses are
conducted for tall piers with height of 40, 60, 70, and 80 m,
respectively, extending the conclusions obtained from 50 m
pier to a class of tall piers. Finally, conclusions of this study
are presented.
2. Bridge prototype and analysis model
2.1. Bridge prototype
The prototype bridge considered herein is identical to a pre-
vious study (Chen et al., 2018), as shown in Figure 1. In
this four-span continuous bridge, the joints are socket con-
nected to the pier top and thus provide hinge-like connec-
tions between the girders and the piers. Each bridge pier is
composed of variable hollow sections with external dimen-
sions from 3.35 m
5.0 m to 2.1 m
5.0 m and wall thick-
ness of 0.6 m; detailed information of the cross section is
presented in Figure 2. More information about this typical
tall pier bridge in Southwest China could be referred to
Chen et al. (2018).
To better understand the fragility of the tall piers, a typ-
ical conventional bridge constructed in Southwest China
with piers of short-to-medium height was used as a refer-
ence case for comparison as well. The superstructure of this
conventional bridge was the same as that of the tall pier
bridge; however, the height of the pier was 10 m with uni-
form rectangle section as shown in Figure 2, where the unit
of steel diameter is millimetre. The axial compression ratio
at the base section of the 10 m pier was about 0.10, which is
similar that of the 50 m pier (0.094); and the longitudinal
steel ratio of the base section is 1.37%, a value that is com-
monly used in high seismicity regions of Southwest China
and the same as that of the 50 m pier.
2.2. Analysis model
To focus on the fragility of piers, the prototype bridge was
simplified and represented as a single mass-column system
as shown in Figure 3. In this single column model, the
tributary mass (M ¼ 723 tons) from the two-adjacent half
spans of the superstructure (see Node 1 in Figure 3(a)) was
 STRUCTURE AND INFRASTRUCTURE ENGINEERING 3

30 30 30 30
Cast-in-situ joint

2.10 Precast Precast

girder girder

Rubber pads
47 45 49 Investigated 48 46 Socket of
portion shear key
Pier column

(reinforcement and tendons are not shown)

3.35
Details for girder-pier connection

Figure 1. Elevation of the prototype bridge (Unit: m).

500
500
150
Longitudinal rebars
Φ32 @ 15
60
Longitudinal rebars
210
350

150
60 Φ32 @ 15 Longitudinal rebars
Φ24 @ 8
Rectangular ties Φ12
60
Rectangular ties Φ10
60

Rectangular stirrups Φ10

Rectangular ties Φ12 @ 10 cm inside intensified region
@ 20 cm outside intensified region
Rectangular stirrups Φ12
@ 10 cm inside intensified region
@ 20 cm outside intensified region
(c) Cross section of
(a) Base section of tall pier (b) Top section of tall pier conventional pier
Figure 2. Cross sections of the 50 and 10 m pier (Unit: cm).

Stress
Node 1
(e)
element 1 εu ε0
Node 2 Cross Strain
element 2 Section
fpcu

Beam-column
element (c) fpc
E0=2fpc/ε0
Node i Longitudinal
Stress

steel fibers
Node i+1
Unconfined cover Fy b×E0
concrete fibers E0

Confined core Strain

Node N concrete fibers E0
element N (b)
(a) (d) b×E0 Fy
(f)
Figure 3. Numerical model: (a) cantilever beam-column; (b) scheme of fibre-element model; (c) fiber section; (d) Discretisation of fibres; (e) constitutive relationship
of concrete; (f) constitutive relationship of steel.

concentrated at the pier top. The distributed pier masses
were lumped at the nodes of column elements, ranging
from 55 to 94 tons. Soil–foundation interaction effects were
neglected in current model. Similarly, the conventional
bridge was also simplified and modelled as a single column
system for comparison.
The finite element models for both the tall pier and the
conventional pier were developed based on the OpenSees
platform. To consider the nonlinear behaviour of the
reinforced concrete piers, force-based fibre beam-column
elements were adopted (Taucer, Spacone, & Filippou, 1991).
The cross sections were divided into concrete and steel
4 X. CHEN ET AL.

Table 1. Characteristics of the near-fault ground motions.

Sa(T1, 5%) (g)
No. Earthquake Year Magnitude Epicentral distance (Rjb, km) PGA (g) 50 m pier 10 m pier
NF1 Northridge-01 1994 6.69 0 0.874 0.473 1.952
NF2 San Fernando 1971 6.61 0 1.238 0.408 1.154
NF3 Tabas_ Iran 1978 7.35 1.79 0.871 0.447 0.875
NF4 Imperial Valley-06 1979 6.53 0 0.287 0.184 0.359
NF5 Imperial Valley-06 1979 6.53 8.54 0.220 0.110 0.295
NF6 Imperial Valley-06 1979 6.53 7.31 0.235 0.244 0.383
NF7 Imperial Valley-06 1979 6.53 0.07 0.317 0.287 0.513
NF8 Imperial Valley-06 1979 6.53 8.6 0.232 0.234 0.233
NF9 Imperial Valley-06 1979 6.53 10.79 0.267 0.276 0.357
NF10 Imperial Valley-06 1979 6.53 4.9 0.370 0.332 0.426
NF11 Imperial Valley-06 1979 6.53 1.76 0.529 0.283 0.528
NF12 Imperial Valley-06 1979 6.53 0 0.447 0.424 0.499
NF13 Imperial Valley-06 1979 6.53 0.56 0.469 0.443 0.938
NF14 Imperial Valley-06 1979 6.53 5.09 0.481 0.185 0.541
NF15 Imperial Valley-06 1979 6.53 5.35 0.258 0.154 0.355
NF16 Irpinia_ Italy-01 1980 6.9 8.14 0.190 0.187 0.305
NF17 Irpinia_ Italy-01 1980 6.9 6.78 0.321 0.313 0.423
NF18 Superstition Hills-02 1987 6.54 0.95 0.432 0.689 0.945
NF19 Loma Prieta 1989 6.93 10.27 0.285 0.173 0.418
NF20 Loma Prieta 1989 6.93 10.38 0.370 0.110 0.296

fibres, as shown in Figure 3(c,d), and the concrete fibres
were further discretised as confined (core fibres) and uncon-
fined (cover fibres) ones. The constitutive relationship for
the concrete material was calculated according to the
Kent–Scott–Park material law (Figure 3(e)) (Scott, Park, &
Priestley, 1982). The unconfined compressive strength of the
concrete was set as 26.8 MPa, whereas the confined com-
pressive strength was calculated as 28.5 MPa. A uniaxial
bilinear relationship with kinematic hardening and optional
isotropic hardening was adopted for the steel fibers
(Guirguis & Mehanny, 2013); the steel’s behaviour (Figure
3(f)) is characterised by an initial linearly elastic portion of
the stress–strain relationship, with a modulus of elasticity of
E0 ¼ 200 GPa, up to the yield stress Fy ¼ 400 MPa, followed
by a subsequent region of strain hardening (b ¼ 0.02).
3. Selection of ground motions
Two suites of ground motion records from the Pacific
Earthquake Engineering Research Centre (PEER) database
were selected and used in this study. One suite is composed
of 20 near-fault motions, while the other contains 20 far-
field motions; the detailed information of these two record
sets is listed in Tables 1 and 2, respectively.
As shown in Table 1, the near-fault motions are selected
with epicentral distances (Rjb) less than 15 km, and magni-
tude between M6.5 and M7.5. Table 1 shows that the PGA
levels range from 0.19 to 1.24 g, and the Sa(T1, 5%) corre-
sponding to the 50 m pier and 10 m pier model range from
0.11 to 0.69 g and 0.23 to 1.95 g, respectively. Note that the
Sa(T1, 5%) of the tall pier are observed much lower than the
PGAs for most motions, due to the inherent long funda-
mental period of the tall pier. On the other hand, Sa(T1,
5%) values of the 10 m-conventional pier are similar to or
larger than the PGA levels, and significantly greater com-
pared with those corresponding to the 50 m pier.
For the far-field motions (Table 2), the epicentral distan-
ces are over 50 km, and the PGA levels range from
0.6
10–2 to 0.136 g, which are generally lower than the
near-fault motions as reported (Xu & Gardoni, 2016).
Moreover, the Sa(T1, 5%) values of the 10 m pier are larger
than those of the 50 m pier and the PGAs for most motions
as well.
Note that amounts of investigations have demonstrated
the significance of avoiding bias in structural response
during seismic analysis to date, selecting ground motions
based on epsilon (e) has been shown a promising method
achieving this aim (Baker & Cornell, 2006; Kazemi,
Ghafory-Ashtiany, & Azarbakht, 2013, 2017; Mousavi,
Ghafory-Ashtiany, & Azarbakht, 2011). To validate the
selected ground motions, the CMS-e (conditioned mean
spectrum considering the effects of e) proposed by Baker
(2011) is employed developing the target spectra for near-
fault and far-field motions, respectively. The conditional
mean spectra are established based on seismic hazard disag-
gregation results and ground motions models of Southwest
China (Lei, Gao, & Yv, 2007), and the period of interest
(T) is defined as the first mode period (T1 ¼ 2.1 s).
Detailed steps of developing the conditional mean spectra
can be referred to in Baker’s work (2011).
Figure 4 displays the spectra of the selected motions and
the conditional mean spectra, for 50 m pier in the case of
both near-fault and far-field motions; the situation of 10 m
pier is similar. In this figure, the near-fault and far-field
motions are scaled with Sa(T) ¼ 0.3 and 0.026 g, respect-
ively, which are the target values utilised in CMS-e method.
Figure 4 shows that the selected ground motions match well
with the conditional mean spectra obtained from CMS-e
method for both near-fault and far-field motions. This phe-
nomenon indicates that no significant bias is observed with
these selected motions, and they could be utilised for fragil-
ity analysis.
4. Demand models for investigated bridges
In current seismic fragility assessment for bridges, different
parameters (Alam, Bhuiyan, & Billah, 2012; Hwang, Liu, &
Chiu, 2001; Kowalsky, 2000; Muntasir Billah & Alam, 2015;
 STRUCTURE AND INFRASTRUCTURE ENGINEERING 5

Table 2. Characteristics of the far-field ground motions.

Sa(T1, 5%) (g)
No. Earthquake Year Magnitude Epicentral distance (Rjb, km) PGA (g) 50 m pier 10 m pier
FF1 San Fernando 1971 6.61 61.75 0.052 0.007 0.008
FF2 San Fernando 1971 6.61 61.75 0.026 0.004 0.007
FF3 Taiwan SMART1 1983 6.5 91.54 0.006 0.003 0.010
FF4 Taiwan SMART2 1983 6.5 91.54 0.020 0.003 0.018
FF5 Taiwan SMART3 1986 7.3 51.35 0.052 0.035 0.045
FF6 Taiwan SMART4 1986 7.3 51.35 0.136 0.032 0.141
FF7 Loma Prieta 1989 6.93 79.16 0.049 0.019 0.190
FF8 Loma Prieta 1989 6.93 79.16 0.039 0.019 0.084
FF9 Loma Prieta 1989 6.93 79.71 0.125 0.038 0.324
FF10 Loma Prieta 1989 6.93 54.97 0.049 0.023 0.056
FF11 Loma Prieta 1989 6.93 54.97 0.050 0.019 0.061
FF12 Loma Prieta 1989 6.93 71.23 0.098 0.042 0.110
FF13 Loma Prieta 1989 6.93 71.23 0.113 0.059 0.155
FF14 Loma Prieta 1989 6.93 76.4 0.036 0.012 0.050
FF15 Loma Prieta 1989 6.93 76.4 0.077 0.030 0.098
FF16 Loma Prieta 1989 6.93 75.07 0.029 0.018 0.054
FF17 Loma Prieta 1989 6.93 75.07 0.068 0.059 0.076
FF18 Landers 1992 7.28 144.13 0.026 0.018 0.047
FF19 Landers 1992 7.28 144.13 0.028 0.023 0.035
FF20 Landers 1992 7.28 50.85 0.050 0.017 0.033

4 0.5
Sepctral Acceleration (g)

Imperial Valley Sepctral Acceleration (g) Loma Prieta

0.4
3 Other events Other events
Conditional mean spectrum Conditional mean spectrum
0.3
2
0.2
Sa(T*) = 0.3 g Sa(T*) = 0.026 g
1
(a) 0.1 (b)
0 0.0
0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4
Periods (s) Periods (s)
Figure 4. Conditional mean spectrum for Southwest China (with T ¼ 2.1 s, the fundamental period of 50 m pier) and response spectra of selected motions: (a)
near-fault motions; (b) far-field motions.

Padgett & DesRoches, 2008; Zhang & Huo, 2009) have been
used to measure the seismic demands of piers, such as drift,
residual drift and displacement ductility, etc. Note that all
these damage measures are related to the displacement at
the pier top, which has already been shown to be an invalid
damage index for tall piers (Chen et al., 2016; Guan et al.,
2011). On the other hand, the maximum response of section
curvature is most widely accepted and used damage measure
for these tall pier bridges (Ceravolo, Demarie, Giordano,
Mancini, & Sabia, 2009; Chen et al., 2018). Thus, seismic
demand of the 50-m tall pier is represented in the form of
curvature ductility (l/ ), which is defined as
/ applied to each of the selected ground motions listed in Tables
l/ ¼
/y
where / is the curvature demand, and /y is the curvature
for the first yielding of longitudinal steel bars, which can be
obtained from the moment–curvature analysis.
In current study, two methods, namely cloud approach and
scaling approach (Billah, Alam, & Bhuiyan, 2013), are used to
provide sufficient data for the development of PSDMs, In the
cloud approach, a suite of ground motions with various inten-
sities are selected and used as input for bridge structures.
While in the scaling approach, each of selected motions is
scaled up and down to generate an ensemble of motions with
various intensities. Series of NTHA procedures are then con-
ducted to compute the structural demands at each intensity
level, followed by regression analyses constructing the PSDMs.
To incorporate the seismic responses of pier columns from
linear-elastic to nonlinear-plastic range, scaling factors are
selected from 0.5 to 5.0, covering a wide range of ground
motion intensities. Furthermore, to provide sufficient data
sets for analysis, 10 scaling factors equally distributed between
0.5 and 5.0 (i.e., 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 … 4.5, 5.0) are generated and
(1)
1 and 2. Thus, for both the cases of far-field and near-fault
motions, 200 data sets were eventually generated.
In a PSDM, the median of seismic demand (Sd) and the
ground intensity measures (IM) are assumed to follow a
logarithmic correlation according to the power-law function
(Cornell, Jalayer, Hamburger, & Foutch, 2002), which can
be expressed as
6 X. CHEN ET AL.
6 6.0
10 m pier (a)
y = 1.4645x + 2.968
R2 = 0.737
3 3.0
ln( )
0 0.0
50 m pier
y = 1.336x + 1.397
R2 = 0.763
-3
-3 -2 -1 0 1
ln (PGA)
Figure 5. Comparison of the PSDMs of 50 and 10 m piers subjected to near-fault motions for (a) PGA-based; (b) Sa(T1, 5%)-based.
Sd ¼ aIMb orlnðSd Þ ¼ lnðaÞ þ blnðIMÞ (2)
where a and b are unknown regression coefficients, which
can be obtained from a regression analysis. With the
assumption that Sd follows the lognormal distribution
(Padgett & DesRoches, 2008), the dispersion of the seismic
demand conditioned on IM, bDjIM , can be computed as (
Muntasir Billah & Alam, 2015)
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
PN
ð Þ
i ðln D lnðaIM ÞÞ
b 2
bDjIM ¼ (3)
N2
where D is the seismic demands obtained from NTHA pro-
cedures for each input motion; N is the number of total
simulation cases.
For the establishment of PSDMs, various parameters can
be used as IMs. While the spectral acceleration at funda-
mental period for a damping ratio of 5% (Sa(T1, 5%)) is
widely recognised as an efficient IM (Shome, Cornell,
Bazzurro, & Carballo, 1998; Tothong & Luco, 2007), Mackie
and Stojadinovi¢ (2001) and Padgett and DesRoches (2008)
employed PGA in their investigations as well. Thus, this
study employs both PGA and Sa(T1, 5%) as IMs for the con-
struction of PSMDs, and the one that meets the criteria of
efficiency and sufficiency (Luco & Cornell, 2007; Padgett,
Nielson, & DesRoches, 2008) is then selected for the follow-
ing analysis developing fragility curves.
Figure 5(a) depicts and compares the PSDMs developed
on the basis of section curvature ductility (l/ ) for the 50
and 10 m pier subjected to near-fault ground motions, with
PGA employed as intensity measure; Figure 5(b) presents
the corresponding results for the two pier models using
their Sa(T1, 5%) values as intensity measure. Similarly, the
PSDMs developed for two pier models subjected to far-field
motions are presented and compared in Figure 6(a,b), using
the PGA and Sa(T1, 5%) as IMs, respectively. The parame-
ters for Equation (2), i.e. ln(a) and b, are computed through
regression analyses and listed in Table 3 for each case, as
well as the dispersion (bDjIM ) obtained with Equation (3).
When subjected to near-fault ground motions with PGA
as IM (Figure 5(a)), the 10 m pier yields higher median val-
ues of curvature ductility than the 50 m pier. This phenom-
enon is reasonable that the significant structural flexibility
10 m pier (b)
4.5 y = 1.482x + 2.596
R2 = 0.806
1.5
50 m pier
-1.5 y = 1.385x + 1.911
R2 = 0.815
-3.0
2 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4
ln (Sa(T1, 5%))
leads to inherently long fundamental period of the 50 m
pier (T1 ¼ 2.15 s), which is out of the range of the dominate
energy content of many seismic events (as shown Figure 4).
Thus, the demand of curvature ductility at the base of tall
piers, which is mainly dominated by the first vibration
mode, is generally smaller than that of the 10 m pier, whose
fundamental period is 0.92 s. Furthermore, the 10 m pier
also shows a larger dispersion than the 50 m pier, which is
presented by both a smaller R2 in Figure 5(a) and a larger
bDjIM in Table 3.
From Figure 5(b), where Sa(T1, 5%) is employed as IM,
similar conclusions can be obtained when comparing the
results for the 50 and the 10 m pier. Note that the range of
horizontal axis values, i.e. lnðSa ðT1 , 5%ÞÞ, for two pier
models are different in this figure. The reason is that, even
subjected to the ground motion with the same PGA level,
the Sa(T1, 5%) of two piers will be different due to different
fundamental period, as listed in Table 3. On the other hand,
for the PSDM corresponding to far-field motions (Figure 6),
the 10 m pier is observed with higher median values and
larger dispersions compared with the 50 m pier as well,
using either PGA or Sa(T1, 5%) employed as IM.
Comparisons between the two PSDMs developed for
50 m pier subjected to near-fault motions (see in Figure
5(a,b) and Table 3) show that when Sa(T1, 5%) is employed
as IM, the regression results yields less dispersion; i.e.,
Sa(T1, 5%) is more efficient in current study compared with
PGA. For example, the R2 of the PGA-based regression line
is 0.763, while that of the Sa(T1, 5%)-based one is 0.815, and
the bDjIM for PGA-based and Sa(T1, 5%)-based results are
0.636 and 0.562, respectively. Similarly, in the case of 10 m
pier, when PGA and Sa(T1, 5%) are used as IMs, the R2 val-
ues are 0.737 and 0.806, respectively, and the bDjIM are
0.747 and 0.642, respectively. Furthermore, when Sa(T1, 5%)
is used as IM, the values of b are 1.385 and 1.482 for the 50
and 10 m pier, respectively, larger than those corresponding
to PGA (1.336 and 1.465). This result shows that Sa(T1, 5%)
is a more sufficient IM than PGA as well.
This fact indicates that for both the two pier mod-
els, lnðl/ Þ possesses a better linear relation with
lnðSa ðT1 , 5%ÞÞ, rather than lnðPGAÞ: The reason might be
that Sa(T1, 5%) directly presents the spectrum acceleration
 STRUCTURE AND INFRASTRUCTURE ENGINEERING 7

Figure 6. Comparison of the PSDMs of 50 and 10 m piers subjected to far-field motions for (a) PGA-based; (b) Sa(T1, 5%)-based.

Table 3. Parameters of PSDMs for various cases.

PGA as IM Sa(T1, 5%) as IM
Input motions Pier height ln(a) b bDjIM ln(a) b bDjIM
Near-fault 50 m 1.397 1.336 0.636 1.911 1.385 0.562
10 m 2.968 1.465 0.747 2.596 1.482 0.642
Far-field 50 m 0.817 1.120 0.699 1.852 1.118 0.485
10 m 3.202 0.992 0.797 3.259 0.868 0.695

Table 4. Damage states for both 50 and 10 m piers.

can be utilised for the tall pier as well. From previous inves-
Damage state Performance level Curvature ductility (l/ )
tigations about conventional piers, l/ at pier base is corre-
Slight Minor Cracking and spalling 1.70 > l/ > 1
lated to the displacement ductility (ld ) at the pier top,
Moderate Moderate cracking and spalling 3.67 > l/ > 1.70 which can be computed by the following equation:
Extensive Degradation 14.19 > l/ > 3.67    
3 /y H þ H 2 lp lp l/ 1 /y
1 2 1
Collapse Collapse l/ > 14.19 D
ld ¼ ¼ (5)
Dy 3 /y H
1 2

corresponding to the first vibration mode, which dominates
the seismic response of section curvature at the pier base,
where this parameter reached the maximum value.
Consequently, the fragility analysis of both the 50 and 10 m
pier, subjected to either near-fault or far-field ground
motions, are conducted with the PSDMs using Sa(T1, 5%) as
intensity measure in the following parts.
5. Estimates of capacity for investigated bridges
Definition of different damage limit states and their quanti-
tative measures is critical to assess the seismic fragility of
bridges. Damage states of a bridge should be defined in
such a way that they represent the bridge functional per-
formance during an earthquake. In this study, four perform-
ance levels as defined in HAZUS-MH (FEM, 2008) in terms
of observed experimental responses, namely slight, moder-
ate, extensive, and collapse, are adopted for the investigated
piers as presented in Table 4.
Note that the curvature ductility (l/ ) is a performance
index in section level, which ought to be independent of the
structure type, i.e. the structural capacity expressed in terms
of this parameter will not be affected by such factors as pier
height, format of girders, etc. Therefore, l/ corresponding
to each damage state of conventional short-to-medium piers
where D and Dy denote displacement demand and yielding
displacement at the pier top, respectively; H represents the
pier height; lp is the equivalent length of plastic hinge at
pier base region. Considering lp approximately as 0.1 H
(Berry, Lehman, & Lowes, 2008), the curvature ductility can
be expressed as
ld 1
l/ ¼ þ1 (6)
0:285
As presented in previous research (Hwang et al., 2001),
the range of displacement ductility of conventional piers
corresponding to the four damage states are 1 < ld < 1.20,
1.20 < ld <1.76, 1.76 < ld < 4.76, and 4.76 < ld , respect-
ively. Consequently, the damage states of tall piers defined
in terms of l/ can be obtained using Equation (6), as
shown in Table 4. Note that the damage states of 10 m pier
are also represented in the form of l/ for comparison pur-
pose in this paper, although it can be characterised by dis-
placement-based indexes.
Table 5 presents the capacities of each damage state for
the two bridge piers, where the median values (Sc) are com-
puted using Equation (6) and thresholds of ld recom-
mended in previous work of Hwang et al. (2001).
Furthermore, the lognormal standard deviations (bc ) for
each damage state are shown in this table as well, which
arises from the inherent randomness of system, i.e. the
8 X. CHEN ET AL.
Table 5. Limit capacities of two piers (Lee & Billington, 2011; Muntasir Billah
& Alam, 2015; Nielson, 2005; Saiidi & Ardakani, 2012).
Damage state Slight Moderate Extensive
Sc 1 1.70 3.67
bc 0.25 0.25 0.46
randomness of the material properties that affect strength.
The capacities of the two piers are assumed to follow a log-
normal distribution as proposed by Nielson (2005).The val-
ues of bc recommended by previous investigations (Lee &
Billington, 2011; Muntasir Billah & Alam, 2015; Nielson,
2005; Saiidi & Ardakani, 2012) are used in this study and
listed in Table 5. Note that larger uncertainty is adopted for
the extensive damage state (bc ¼ 0.46), while a smaller one
is assumed for slight and moderate damage state (bc ¼
0.25). The reason for this assumption is that the higher
damage states are associated with more aleatoric uncertainty
than the lower ones (Ramanathan, DesRoches, &
Padgett, 2012).
6. Fragility assessment
Fragility curves represent the ability of a structure to with-
stand a specified event (Padgett & DesRoches, 2008; Tekie
& Ellingwood, 2003), defining the possibility of a structure
being damaged when subjected to a given level of IM; that
is, the conditional probability of the seismic demand (D)
exceeds corresponding structural capacity (C), as shown in
the following equation:
Fragility ¼ P½D  CjIM
Therefore, with the PSDMs and estimated capacities cor-
responding to different damage states, the fragilities can be
generated by the following equation (Padgett & DesRoches,
2008):
0 1
lnðSd Þ  lnðSc Þ
Fragility ¼ U@ qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi A (8)
b2DjIM þ b2C
where UðÞ denotes the standard normal cumulative distri-
bution function (CDF).
Utilizing the parameters from the capacity of each dam-
age state as well as those from the PSDMs, the fragility
curves are generated and presented in Figure 7 for slight
through collapse damage for both the 50 and 10 m pier
under near-fault ground motions. Sa(T1, 5%) values for 50%
probability of exceeding each damage state are presented for
each case, and the PGA levels corresponding to each Sa(T1,
5%) value are also estimated by considering the averaged
ratio between PGA and Sa(T1, 5%), which can be computed
from Table 1.
Figure 7 illustrates that the 50 m pier is seismically less
vulnerable compared to the 10 m pier for all the damage
states, especially the more severe ones, namely extensive and
collapse, are considered; that is, higher input intensity (rep-
resented by Sa(T1, 5%) herein) is required for 50 m pier
exceeding a certain damage state. For example, the Sa(T1,
5%) of the 50 m pier corresponding to the 50% probability
of exceeding slight damage (see in Figure 7(a)) is 0.25 g,
38.9% higher than that of the 10 m pier (0.18 g); while con-
Collapse
sidering the extensive damage state as shown in Figure 7(c),
14.19
0.46
the Sa(T1, 5%) of the 50 m pier for 50% probability (0.64 g)
is 56.1% higher than that of the 10 m pier (0.41 g). And
when input PGA levels are considered, the values corre-
sponding to 50% probability of damage of 50 m pier can be
even more than twice those of the 10 m pier for all damage
states. These phenomena match the results plotted in Figure
5, where the 10 m pier yield higher seismic response than
the 50 m pier, and the discrepancies between the expected
responses increase with the input Sa(T1, 5%) values.
Similarly, Figure 8 compares the fragility curves of the
50 m pier when subjected to near-fault and far-field
motions; the Sa(T1, 5%) values corresponding to 50% prob-
ability of exceeding each damage state are presented as well.
This figure shows that at lower damage levels, namely slight
and moderate damage, the 50 m pier is less vulnerable under
near-field motions. For the slight damage, the ratio between
the Sa(T1, 5%) for 50% probability of damage corresponding
to the near-fault motions (0.25 g) and that of the far-field
motions (0.19 g) is about 1.32, while this ratio is 1.19
(0.37 g/0.31 g) in the case of moderate damage state. This
fact means that with the development of damage states, the
seismic vulnerability caused by near-fault motions increases
more quickly than that corresponding to the far-
field motions.
When considering the extensive damage state (see in
Figure 8(c)), the fragility curve of the 50 m pier under near-
fault motions almost coincide with that corresponding to
(7)
the far-field motions. Furthermore, for the collapse damage
shown in Figure 8(d), the 50 m pier is observed more vul-
nerable under near-fault motions, on the opposite side to
the results observed for slight and moderate damage states.
The Sa(T1, 5%) for 50% probability of damage is 1.72 g in
this case when near-fault input motions are considered,
while that for the far-field motions is over 2.0 g.
These phenomena can be explained by referring to the
PSDMs plotted in Figure 9(a), where l/NF and l/FF present
the curvature ductility demand due to the near-fault and
far-field motions, respectively. From this figure, the PSDMs
corresponding to the two sets of ground motions are
observed with an intersection at Sa(T1, 5%) ¼ 0.801 g and
l/Inter ¼ 4.97, indicating that the near-fault and far-field
ground motions will lead to identical seismic demands at
this point for the 50 m pier. For intensities Sa(T1, 5%) less
than 0.801 g, the seismic demands from the far-field
motions are observed greater than those from the near-fault
motions; otherwise, relatively larger seismic demands are
induced by the near-fault ground motions than the far-field
ground motions.
This phenomenon can be attributed to the different char-
acteristics of near-fault and far field motions. Velocity pulses
in near-fault ground motions tend to result in larger spectral
accelerations in long-period range, while far-field ground
motions generally have larger spectral accelerations in short-
period range (Bray & Rodriguez-Marek, 2004; Dicleli, 2006).
This tendency is also shown in the near-fault and far-field
 STRUCTURE AND INFRASTRUCTURE ENGINEERING 9

Figure 7. Fragility curves for 50 and 10 m piers subjected to near-fault motions for various damage states.

Figure 8. Fragility curves for 50 m pier when subjected to near-fault and far-field motions.
10 X. CHEN ET AL.
Figure 9. (a) Demand model and (b) fragility curves for 50 m pier subjected to two sets of motions.
ground motion groups used in this study (Figure 4). Thus,
the structures could behave elastically at low intensities, and
the far-field ground motions would likely result in larger
seismic demands than the near-fault ground motions. When
the structures undergo significant damage with increased
intensities, the mode periods are elongated, and the near-
fault ground motions would likely lead to larger seismic
demands than the far-field ground motions. The change
consequently led to the fragility curves presented in Figure
8(c) crossing each other.
Particularly, if the capacity of a damage state is exactly
set as l/Inter , the fragility curves of the 50 m pier will be
nearly the same when subjected to both ground motion sets,
which is shown in Figure 9(b). In this figure, the term
‘Inter’ denotes the damage state with capacity of l/Inter , and
bC is assumed as 0.46. This fact shows that the assessment
for the vulnerability of tall piers significantly depends on
the damage state capacity, which should be carefully speci-
fied by the designers.
Note that the 50 m pier model possesses extreme low vul-
nerability for the collapse damage state, subjected to either
near-fault or far-field motions. As shown in Figure 8(d), the
Sa(T1, 5%) for the 50% probability of collapse damage are
1.72 g and over 2.0 g for near-fault and far-field motions,
respectively. By referring to Tables 1 and 2, the correspond-
ing PGA levels are estimated over 4.0 g for some motions,
which are unlikely to occur in real earthquakes.
On the other hand, however, the extensive damage state
is possible to be exceeded, as the 50% probability Sa(T1, 5%)
are 0.64 and 0.61 g for near-fault and far-field motions,
respectively. Although the corresponding PGAs might be
over 1.5 g for some earthquake excitations, exceeding the
values considered in current design specifications, quite a
few earthquakes with particularly larger intensity were
observed in recent years. For example, the maximum PGA
levels were 1.82 and 0.96 g for the 1994 Northridge earth-
quake (Yegian, Gazetas, Dakoulas, Makris, & Ghahraman,
1995) and 2008 Wenchuan earthquake (Krausmann, Cruz,
& Affeltranger, 2010), respectively. Consequently, future
research for tall piers might focus on the issues about the
seismic performance before final collapse.
Figure 10(a) plots the median values (Sa(T1, 5%)) of
the fragility curves for the 50 and 10 m pier subjected to
near-fault motions; while the comparisons for 50 m pier under
different ground motion sets are presented in Figure 10(b).
The comparisons in these figures confirm previous results
that: (a) the 50 m pier is less vulnerable than the 10 m pier
when subjected to near-fault for all the four damage states; (b)
for both the slight and moderate damage states, the 50 m pier
is more vulnerable under far-field motions; while these two
sets of motions lead to similar seismic fragility for extensive
damage, and the tall pier is more vulnerable under near-fault
motions when the collapse state is considered.
7. Brief description of the results for tall piers with
various heights
To extend the conclusions obtained from the 50 m pier
model to a class of tall piers, similar fragility analyses are
also conducted for tall pier models with heights of 40, 60,
70, and 80 m, respectively. These tall piers are subjected to
ground motions listed in Tables 1 and 2 as well. Due to
space limitations, the corresponding results are briefly sum-
marised in this section and will not be discussed in detail.
Table 6 shows the Sa(T1, 5%) values of 50% probability
of damage for each tall pier model when subjected to near-
fault motions; the PGA levels corresponding to each Sa(T1,
5%), estimated with the average PGA/Sa(T1, 5%) ratios for
each pier model, are presented for illustrating as well. Note
that PGA directly depends on the input ground motions,
while Sa(T1, 5%) is related to the structural dynamics (fun-
damental period, T1) in addition to motion characteristics.
Thus, when comparing the results of tall pier systems with
different heights, PGA serves a better index presenting the
input intensity of ground motions; i.e. a higher level of
PGA indicates a stronger earthquake excitation, and vice
versa. From Table 6, all the tall piers with heights from 40
to 80 m are observed with greater input PGA levels com-
pared with the 10 m pier for each state, when 50% probabil-
ity of damage is considered. This fact indicates that when
subjected to the same near-fault ground motions, tall piers
are expected to be seismically less vulnerable.
Table 6 also shows that the Sa(T1, 5%) and PGA values
corresponding to 50% probability of damage for each pier
model increase with pier height up to 50 m and then
decrease with higher pier heights. The reason for this
 STRUCTURE AND INFRASTRUCTURE ENGINEERING 11

2.0 2.0
(a) 50 m pier (b) Near-fault
1.5 10 m pier 1.5 Far-field

Sa(T1, 5%) (g)

1.0 1.0

0.5 0.5

0.0 0.0
Slight Moderate Extensive Collapse Slight Moderate Extensive Collapse
Figure 10. Comparisons of median values of Sa(T1, 5%): (a) two piers subjected to near-fault motions; (b) 50 m pier subjected to both sets of motions.

Table 6. Sa(T1, 5%) and PGA values for 50 % probability of damage for each pier model under near-fault motions (Unit: g).
Damage state
Slight Moderate Extensive Collapse
Pier height (m) Sa(T1, 5%) PGA Sa(T1, 5%) PGA Sa(T1, 5%) PGA Sa(T1, 5%) PGA
10 0.18 0.14 0.25 0.20 0.50 0.40 1.03 0.82
40 0.19 0.24 0.29 0.37 0.56 0.71 1.79 2.28
50 0.25 0.34 0.37 0.50 0.64 0.86 1.72 2.32
60 0.072 0.32 0.11 0.49 0.18 0.84 0.47 2.09
70 0.039 0.26 0.061 0.41 0.12 0.81 0.38 2.56
80 0.033 0.27 0.052 0.44 0.096 0.81 0.28 2.33

1.2
from significant distributed mass of pier columns becomes
T1-10m = 0.92 s
more important and results in greater seismic demands,
Sepctral Acceleration (g)

Sa(T1, 5%) = 0.58 g

0.9 T1-40m = 1.50 s
Sa(T1, 5%) = 0.43 g
0.6
0.3
0.0
0 1
Figure 11. Mean acceleration response spectrum for near fault motions with T1
of various piers.
phenomenon is that the factors dominating the seismic
demands of piers change with the increase of pier height.
To better understand this issue, Figure 11 shows the mean
acceleration response spectrum of the selected near-fault
motions, where the fundamental periods for each considered
pier system and the corresponding Sa(T1, 5%) values are
marked for comparison. For piers with heights increasing
from 10 to 50 m, the variation of seismic performance is
mainly influenced by the elongation of the fundamental
periods as shown in Figure 11, which leads to smaller spec-
tral accelerations and consequently lower seismic demands.
This is represented in the results of fragility analysis by
increased values for both Sa(T1, 5%) and PGA correspond-
ing to 50% probability of damage presented in Table 6.
When pier heights increasing over 50 m, although the
fundamental periods continue to increase, the discrepancies
between the corresponding spectral accelerations become
smaller (see Figure 11). On the other hand, the inertia force
Thus, lower input intensities are required leading to a cer-
tain level of damage, represented by a decrease of Sa(T1,
T1-50m = 2.16 s
Sa(T1, 5%) = 0.29 g 5%) and PGA for 50% probability of damage. Note that the
T1-60m = 2.91 s trend of ‘decrease’ in IMs herein is compared with the case
Sa(T1, 5%) = 0.23 g
T1-70m = 3.74 s of other tall piers (with heights of 40 and 50 m); while com-
Sa(T1, 5%) = 0.16 g T1-70m = 4.68 s
pared with the 10 m-height pier, the PGA levels of tall piers
Sa(T1, 5%) = 0.12 g
corresponding to 50% probability of exceeding each damage
state are still significantly greater.
Furthermore, despite the Sa(T1, 5%) values in Table 6 differ
2 3 4 5 6
significantly, the estimated PGAs are comparable for each tall
Periods (s) pier for all the damage states considered. For example, the
greatest differences between the PGAs for 50% probability of
damage for tall piers from 40 to 80 m are 23.5%, 18.0%, 5.8%,
and 18.4%, respectively, for slight, moderate, extensive, and
collapse damage state. This fact means that under near-fault
motions with similar input intensity (PGA), dynamic
responses of piers with heights ranging from 40 to 80 m are
similar and can be represented by the results of 50 m pier. On
the other hand, the estimated PGA values corresponding to
collapse damage state exceed 2.0 g for all tall pier models,
which is unlikely to be reached in an earthquake event, as pre-
viously stated for the 50 m pier. While for the extensive dam-
age state, the corresponding PGA levels are around 0.8 g, a
commonly recorded intensity level in catastrophic earth-
quakes as Tohoku earthquake (Takewaki, Murakami, Fujita,
Yoshitomi, & Tsuji, 2011), Wenchuan earthquake
(Krausmann et al., 2010), and Northridge earthquake (Yegian
et al., 1995). Therefore, damage states other than collapse are
indeed to be incorporated when investigating the seismic per-
formance of tall pier bridges.
For illustrating purpose, Figure 12 presents and compares
the medium values of Sa(T1, 5%) of piers with heights of 40,
12 X. CHEN ET AL.
2.0
40 m (near-fault)
40 m (far-field)
1.6
60 m (near-fault)
60 m (far-field)
Sa(T1, 5%) (g)
1.2 80 m (near-fault)
80 m (far-field)
0.8
0.4
0.0
Slight Moderate Extensive Collapse
Damage state
Figure 12. Median values of Sa(T1, 5%) for piers with heights of 40, 60, and 80 m.
60, and 80 m, respectively, subjected to both near-fault and
far-field ground motions. This figure shows that the 40 m
pier is more vulnerable under far-field motions when slight
and moderate damage states are considered, while near-fault
motions are more harmful for the extensive and collapse
state. This phenomenon is similar to that of the 50 m pier,
implying that the fragility assessment is dependent on the
predefined damage state capacities and may change with the
damage states considered.
However, on the other hand, for the 60 and 80 m pier,
the near-fault motions are observed to induce higher seismic
fragility for all the four damage states, as the medium values
of near-fault motions are always smaller than those of the
far-filed motions. This fact indicates that the results of fra-
gility assessment for tall piers also depend on the structural
features in addition to the damage state capacities. The
results presented in Table 6 and Figure 12 illustrate that the
seismic vulnerability of tall piers with heights ranging from
40 to 80 m exhibits similar tendency with the 50 m pier.
Thus, the conclusions obtained from the 50 m pier case can
be generalised to this class of tall pier bridges with standar-
dised superstructure and hollow pier section.
8. Conclusions
This study focuses on the seismic fragility assessment for
bridges with tall piers subjected to near-fault ground motion
and compared to results for far-field ground motions. The
procedure of developing the probability seismic demand
models (PSDMs) is described. The analysis results corre-
sponding to tall piers are presented in the format of fragility
curves and compared with those of a conventional bridge
with piers of 10 m height. From the presented results, the
main conclusions are as follows:
1. Four damage states, namely slight, moderate, extensive,
and collapse, are developed for the tall piers. Instead of
displacement-based indices used in previous investiga-
tions, these damage states are presented in terms of sec-
tion curvature ductility in this study, which has been
shown as an appropriate damage index for tall piers.
2. For both 50 and 10 m pier models, the PSDMs developed
employing Sa(T1, 5%) as intensity measure (IM) show less
dispersions than those with PGA, for both near-fault and
far-field ground motions. Consequently, the fragility anal-
yses are conducted based on the PSDMs with Sa(T1, 5%)
as IM for each investigated case.
3. When subjected to the same near-fault ground motions,
the tall piers are demonstrated seismically less vulnerable
for all the four damage states compared with the 10 m pier.
And the final collapse damage is unlikely to be reached for
tall piers for both near-fault and far-field ground motions,
implying the necessity of incorporating more damage
states for assessing seismic performance of tall piers.
4. Compared with far-field motions, near-fault motions
generally lead to higher seismic vulnerability for tall
piers with height ranging from 40 to 80 m.
Furthermore, the seismic fragility of these tall piers is
comparable, and thus the results of the 50 m pier dis-
cussed in detail can be used as representative of a class
of tall piers with heights in this range.
5. The assessment of vulnerability for the tall piers sub-
jected to near-fault and far-field motions changes for 40
and 50 m piers with different damage states considered.
That is, when considering the slight and moderate dam-
age states, the 40 and 50 m piers are more vulnerable to
far-field motions than near-fault motions; in contrast,
when the collapse damage state is considered, near-fault
motions are more harmful.
6. The other three tall pier models, i.e. those with heights
of 60, 70, and 80 m, are more vulnerable under near-
fault motions for all four damage states. These phenom-
ena indicate that the seismic vulnerability of tall pier
bridges depends on both the damage state capacities
and the structural characteristics.
Note that tall piers are unlikely to collapse during an
earthquake event, future research might focus on the post-
earthquake serviceability and repair, which is challenging
due to the rugged topography of Southwest China.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support by the China
Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2019M651468), the National
Natural Science Foundation (No. 51678434, No. 51908348), and the
Project of State Key Laboratory for Disaster Reduction in Civil
Engineering of China (No. SLDRCE15-A-01).
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