Seismic Resilience of Deteriorating RC Bridges and Road Networks under Climate Change

This paper investigates the life-cycle seismic resilience of aging road networks with reinforced concrete (RC) bridges under the effects of climate change. The physical damage suffered by the exposed bridges is related to traffic limitations implemented over the network. A probabilistic framework is proposed to aggregate the time-variant seismic capacity assessment of RC structures exposed to chloride-induced corrosion with the traffic response of the transportation network. The life-cycle seismic resilience of a simple road network is evaluated based on the restoration of the network functionality guaranteed by the post-event recovery of the damaged bridge. The results highlight the detrimental effects of the progressive increase in the deterioration rate induced by climate change, impairing the seismic capacity of single bridges and, in turn, the seismic resilience of the overall transportation system.