APPLICATION OF MULTI-HAZARD SEISMIC-BLAST DETAILING FOR HIGHWAY BRIDGES

Author

Dominique Morton Torres, CUNY City College

Date of Award

2013

Document Type

Thesis

Department

Civil Engineering

First Advisor

Huabei Liu

Second Advisor

Julio Davalos

Keywords

Engineering, blast, bridge

Abstract

The increase of worldwide terrorist attacks on public transportation has heightened our concerns of protecting the nation’s transportation infrastructure. Highway bridges are an attractive target for terrorist attacks due to ease of accessibility and their overall importance to society. The primary objective of this research is to investigate multi-hazard seismic-blast correlations of blast-induced bridge components through numerical simulations of a high-precision finite element model of a typical highway bridge in New York. Seismic-detailing for blast loading on bridges has been investigated to study the correlations between seismic design for blast load effects. High-precision 3D Finite Element models of bridges detailed for blast-resistant applications have been developed by designing the bridges for various seismic zones. In total, 9 cases of simulations for blast-induced bridges have been simulated. From the simulations, four failure mechanisms were observed and have been identified. Results from the simulation suggest that bridges detailed with higher seismic capacities were able to resist more blasted-induced failure mechanisms. The amount and location of transverse reinforcement in bridge columns played a significant role for better blast resistance. Although, there are several failure mechanisms that arise from blast loadings that do not take place in seismic conditions.

Recommended Citation

Torres, Dominique Morton, "APPLICATION OF MULTI-HAZARD SEISMIC-BLAST DETAILING FOR HIGHWAY BRIDGES" (2013). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cc_etds_theses/629