Comparison study of time-varying seismic fragility of precast segmental and cast-in-place bridge columns in high-speed railway bridges

In recent years, precast segmental bridge columns (PSBCs) have been widely used in high-speed railway bridges, but the lack of long-term seismic performance limits PSBCs application in harsh environments and high-intensity areas. However, the selection of high-speed rail lines in high-intensity offshore areas is inevitable. Therefore, considering the impact of environmental erosion and earthquake, it is necessary to study the seismic performance of PSBC. In order to study the application of PSBCs in offshore high-intensity areas, this paper comprehensively compares the time-varying seismic fragility of PSBCs and cast-in-place bridge columns (CPBCs) in high-speed railway bridges. Based on offshore high-speed railway columns, the finite element models of representative PSBCs and CPBCs are established and verified by experiments. Then, the verified finite models are utilized to implement the time-varying fragility analysis by considering chloride ion erosion under four damage states. The main conclusions are as follows: the exceeding probabilities of PSBCs and CPBCs are close in intact bridges under different damage states and seismic intensities. With the prolongation of bridge service time, the steel bars corrosion rate of PSBCs is faster than that of CPBCs due to the discontinuity of PSBCs segments, the exceeding probabilities of PSBCs increase more rapidly than those of CPBCs. When the columns reach the design working life, the exceeding probability and PGA (Peak Ground Acceleration) median of PSBCs are higher than those of CPBCs under four damage states. Taking the moderate damage state as an example, the maximum exceeding probability of PSBCs and CPBCs were 97.2% and 89.1%, respectively, and the PGA median of PSBCs were 24% lower than that of CPBCs at 100 years. This work provides a theoretical foundation for the better application of PSBCs in offshore high-intensity areas.