Modeling Earthquake Bridge Damage

What can be done to prevent bridge damage during earthquakes? In the article "Numerical Modeling of Damaged Bridges in Turkiye Following the Kahramanmaras Earthquake Events," Exponent's Amory Martin, Ezra Jampole, and Jeffrey Hunt explore design strategies for bridges in earthquake zones. 

Following the catastrophic February 6, 2023, Kahramanmaraş earthquake sequence, Dr. Jampole and Dr. Hunt conducted field assessments of 98 bridges in the affected regions, documenting patterns of damage on various bridge elements and its severity. Along with Dr. Martin, they then developed numerical models to simulate the seismic performance of a typical bridge and study how the design and presence of certain bridge elements affected the severity of damage. They identified common damage patterns, such as abutment and pier distress, and proposed mitigation strategies like strengthening shear keys, using thinner bearing pads, and adding diaphragm blocking.

The study emphasizes the importance of secondary bridge design elements in earthquake resilience and provides insights for improving bridge designs in seismically active regions. The paper was published for the 18th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering in Milan, where it was presented by Dr. Martin.

From the publication: "In this study, we developed numerical models of an archetypical bridge observed during the authors' post-earthquake reconnaissance in the Hatay region to enable parametric study of the impacts of certain superstructure to bent cap connection details."