Nonlinear seismic assessment of isolated high-speed railway bridge subjected to near-fault earthquake scenarios

An iterative framework is introduced in this present study to detect seismic isolation precursors of the shortcut calculation method for the isolated benchmark high-speed railway RC bridge. The spatial finite element (FE) analysis model of a benchmark isolated high-speed railway reinforced concrete (RC) bridge system under high-speed railway vehicles is set up based on the equivalent linear method. The vehicle with two bogies is assumed to be represented by a 3 D discrete rigid multi-body system with 23 degrees of freedoms (DOFs). The present study compares the nonlinear seismic response of a high-speed railway bridge with and without isolation bearings. Numerical results demonstrate that the isolation system with the optimal parameters can simultaneously reduce the deck displacement and the internal force of the isolated railway bridge under near-fault (NF) ground motions with various peak accelerations and peak velocity ratios, to ensure the adequate isolation efficiency of isolated structures. Specifically, the study shows that the seismic response of the seismically isolated bridge (IB) and the running safety indexes of the train are primarily dominated by the contents around the fundamental frequency of the train-bridge system subjected to the earthquakes.