Bridges are important and vital structures that provide communication between
different regions. Due to their importance, their design has had a great attention throughout
the world, as evidenced by the continuous development of seismic design code
s such as
AASHTO, which now adopts the performance-based design, and requires through a set of
requirements and criteria that the bridge performance under the design earthquake is at life
safety (LS) level and thus ensures that it does not collapse. Since most of the local bridges
were built at periods where these criteria were not adopted, it is important to verify their
performance and that they meet these criteria.
In this paper, the seismic performance of an existing bridge, which represents a model
for a wide range of local multi-span simply supported bridges, was evaluated by
developing a 3D model of the bridge using SAP2000V19.1 and applying the nonlinear
static analysis. The results of analysis have been used to verify that the bridge meets the
AASHTO seismic requirements, which include the check of the P-Δ requirement,
displacement demand/ capacity, members (columns) ductility, as well as the check of the
shear demand/capacity of the columns.
The results showed that the performance of the studied bridge under the seismic
intensities adopted in the Syrian code achives the acceptable level which is life safity (LS),
but it exceeds this level under high seismic intensity. The research also showed that there is
compatibility between the results of nonlinear static analysis and AASHTO requirements.
