Assessment of post-earthquake serviceability for steel arch bridges with seismic dampers considering mainshock-aftershock sequences

This paper focuses on the post-earthquake serviceability of steel arch bridges installed with three types of seismic dampers suffered mainshock-aftershock sequences. Two post-earthquake serviceability verification methods for the steel arch bridges are compared. The energy-absorbing properties of three types of seismic dampers, including the buckling restrained brace, the shear panel damper and the shape memory alloy damper, are investigated under major earthquakes. Repeated earthquakes are applied to the steel arch bridges to examine the influence of the aftershocks to the structures with and without dampers. The relative displacement is proposed for the horizontal transverse components in such complicated structures. Results indicate that the strain-based verification method is more conservative than the displacement-base verification method in evaluating the post-earthquake serviceability of structures and the seismic performance of the retrofitted structure is significantly improved.