NOMOGRAPH FOR RAPID ESTIMATION OF DAMAGE PROBABILITY FOR RAILWAY STRUCTURES

Abstract

 In this paper, a new method to carry out rapid damage estimation of the railway bridges and viaducts was proposed. The proposed method made it possible to estimates the damage occurrence probability of each structure immediately after an earthquake, by improving the nomograph used for seismic damage estimation. The proposed method is more reliable over the conventional method since it reflects the resonance of structure and earthquake by considering the ratio of the dominant period of seismic motions to the intrinsic period of the structures. In addition, proposed method explicitly considers the differences in the yield strength and deformation performance of each structure, depending on the year of construction and the seismic retrofit records. It follows that resulting damage estimation given by the developed method would be applicable for decision-making with regard to resuming train operation after earthquake.