Dynamic responses of bridges subjected to near-fault ground motions

The motivation of this paper is to study the dynamic behavior of bridge structural systems subjected to both near-fault and far-field ground motions. A highway bridge containing a hinge supported continuous girder with six concrete piers was selected for this study. The Chi-Chi (Taiwan) earthquake was selected as a first set in this study to provide the near-fault earthquake characteristics. On the other hand, another earthquake record was selected to illustrate far-field earthquake characteristics fdr comparison. The results show that near-fault earthquake ground motions cause more ductility demands and base shear than far-field earthquake ground motions.