Dynamic responses of bridges subjected to near-fault ground motions

The motivation of this paper is to study the dynamic behavior of bridge str uctural systems subjected to both near-fault and far-field ground motions. A highway bridge containing a hinge supported continuous girder with six co ncrete piers was selected for this study. The Chi-Chi (Taiwan) earthquake w as selected as a first set in this study to provide the near-fault earthqua ke characteristics. On the other hand, another earthquake record was select ed to illustrate far-field earthquake characteristics fdr comparison. The r esults show that near-fault earthquake ground motions cause more ductility demands and base shear than far-field earthquake ground motions.