Design of Highway Bridges Against Extreme Hazard Events: Issues, Principles and Approaches

Edited by G.C. Lee, M. Tong and W. Phillip Yen

MCEER-08-SP06 | 06/30/2008 | 110 pages

Keywords: Multi-hazard designs.  Highway infrastructure.  Bridges.  Natural hazards.  Manmade hazards.  Load and resistance factor design (LRFD).  Design limit states.  Extreme events.  Building codes.  Hazard resilience.  Seismic designs.  Safety.  Forensic engineering.

Abstract: Following the recent occurrence of several disasters worldwide caused by a variety of natural and manmade hazards, a group of researchers at the University at Buffalo initiated a pilot study funded by FHWA to examine the possibility of establishing a research program on selected aspects of the multi-hazard design of highway bridges.  This preliminary investigation led to the conclusion that, within the context of load and resistance factor design (LRFD), there is an important need to improve design limit states for combined extreme hazard events.  If a more reliable and reasonable set of "demand" characteristics could be established, follow-up studies could then be pursued to improve the "capacity" aspects of LRFD.  The objectives of the proposed research project is to: (1) identify critical hazard-related weaknesses and research and design issues in current highway bridge design and practice, and (2) to develop a research plan for the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to work on these problem areas.  The following publication is comprised of papers delivered at the April 2007 workshop attended by a variety of experts including experienced designers, stakeholders, code authors and researchers.  (Abstract adapted from text).