Study Based on Bridge Health Monitoring System on Multihazard Load Combinations of Earthquake and Truck Loads for Bridge Design in the Southeast Coastal Areas of China

Similar to AmericanLRFD Bridge Design Specifications, the current Chinese bridge design code is fully calibrated against gravity load and live load. Earthquake load is generally considered alone and has its own methodology, however, which is not covered in the code in a consistent probability-based fashion. Earthquake load and truck load are the main loads considered in the basis of bridge design in more than 70% of seismic areas in China. They are random processes, and their combination is the main subject of this paper. Seismic characteristics of southeast coastal areas of China are discussed and an earthquake probability curve is calculated through seismic risk analysis. Using measured truck load data from a Bridge Health Monitoring System, the multimodal characteristics of truck load are analyzed and a probability model for a time intervaltis obtained by fitting results and reliability theory. Then, a methodology is presented to combine earthquake load and truck load on a probabilistic basis. To illustrate this method, truck load and earthquake load combinations are used. Results conceptually illustrate that truck load and earthquake load are not dominant in southeast coastal areas of China, but the effect of their combination is. This methodology quantitatively demonstrates that the design is controlled by truck load in most ranges; that is, truck load is more important to bridge design in the region.

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