Vulnerability assessment of reinforced concrete bridge structures in Algiers using scenario earthquakes

Algeria has an inheritance of more than 11,000 bridges, with approximately 5,000 road bridges of which more than 30 % have a high probability to be exposed to major earthquakes and serious damages in the future. Therefore, it is of great importance to retrofit the existing bridges and assess their seismic vulnerability and set a permanent monitoring survey to follow the change of their dynamic characteristics such as natural frequency and modal damping. The assessment of the seismic vulnerability of existing RC bridges was carried out based on the consistent and complete post earthquake survey after the Boumerdes earthquake. The information on the damaged existing RC bridges was investigated and evaluated by the authors. This paper presents a simple and efficient inspection method for the preliminary evaluation of the seismic vulnerability of existing bridge structures. To assess the seismic damage of 148 existing bridges, two seismic scenarios were carried out using “Khair al Din” and the “Zemmouri” faults that are capable to generate earthquakes with a maximum acceleration of 0.8g. The main findings of this study are summarized in this paper.