PSI - Issue 78

Abed Soleymani et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 78 (2026) 815–822

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1. Introduction Existing bridges may be subjected to severe damage during their service life due to multiple natural and human induced hazards, such as earthquakes, explosions, fires, scouring, and human error. Following an earthquake, assessing the residual capacity of existing bridges is a critical issue since they are a crucial component in post-earthquake functionality of civil infrastructure. Although structural performance and damage of bridges induced by lateral deformation in earthquakes were studied by several researchers (Hachem et al., 2003; Berry and Eberhard, 2003), there are few studies on the residual (remaining) traffic load-carrying capacity of the bridge after damage induced by earthquakes (Khanmohammadi and Akbari, 2019; Li et al., 2025; Ghasemi and Lee, 2021). For instance, Khanmohammadi and Akbari (2019) investigated the post-earthquake load-carrying capacity of the bridge columns under truck loads. Li et al. (2025) proposed a framework to evaluate the post-earthquake loss of bridge traffic capacity considering both the number of open lanes and speed of vehicles crossing the bridge. In another study, Ghasemi and Lee (2021) proposed a reliability-based indicator for assessing post-earthquake traffic flow capacity of a highway bridge, where pre- and post-earthquake structural safety of the bridge was expressed through its reliability index. Moreover, after the earthquake, the decision making process to restrict traffic flow on the bridge is a critical issue for bridge owners and stakeholders. In this respect, based on the loss of vertical and lateral load-carrying capacity, Mackie and Stojadinovic (2004) proposed a decision-making process for allowing traffic flow on the bridge at different performance levels. Although some studies have explored the post-earthquake load-carrying capacity of the different types of reinforced concrete (RC) bridges, there has been no specific research focused on the post-earthquake functionality of RC deck stiffened arch bridges, which were commonly adopted in Italy before prestressed concrete started to be designed. To this end, the post-earthquake traffic load-carrying capacity of an RC deck-stiffened arch bridge damaged by earthquake is evaluated through Nonlinear Time History Analysis (NTHA) and pushdown analysis of the Finite Element (FE) Concrete arch bridges are commonly divided into three main types, including tied-arch, through-arch, and deck arch bridges. Among these, RC deck-stiffened arch bridges, also known as Maillart-type arch bridges, are a significant structural typology of bridge in Italy, which was widely constructed in Italy between the 1940s and 1960s. Generally, RC deck-stiffened arch bridges consist of a rigid reinforced concrete deck with very stiff deck beams, a slender arch with a low moment of inertia, pillars, and transversely thin plain concrete walls between pillars. In this work, the examined bridge was a roadway with two lanes, see Fig. 1. This bridge consisted of twelve spans with a total length of 120 m. Also, the slender arch element with a thickness of 0.12 m has a span length ( ) and rise ( ℎ ) equal to 60 m and 19 m, respectively. Longitudinal steel reinforcement was utilized in structural elements, including beams of the deck, pillars, and arch. Additionally, transverse reinforcement comprised steel wire mesh in the arch element (without stirrups) and closed stirrups in the beams of the deck and pillars. model of the bridge implemented in the software SAP2000 (CSI, 2022). 2.Description of the case study RC deck-stiffened arch bridge

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Fig. 1. (a) Case-study RC deck-stiffened arch bridge; (b) original drawings on deck cross section.