Stochastic seismic analysis of Kömürhan Highway Bridge with varying material properties

Stochastic seismic finite element analyses of the Kömürhan Bridge, the material properties of which are described by random fields, are presented in this paper. The stochastic perturbation technique and Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) method are used in the analyses. A summary of MCS and perturbation-based stochastic finite element dynamic analysis formulation of the structural system is given. The Kömürhan Bridge, located on the 51st km of Elazığ-Malatya highway in the east of Turkey, was chosen as a numerical example. The Erzincan earthquake in 1992 was considered a ground motion, since it took place in the vicinity of the bridge. The material properties were considered to be random variables. During the stochastic analysis, displacements and internal forces of the bridge under consideration were obtained using the perturbation-based stochastic finite element method (SFEM), as well as the MCS method. The selected random variables were elastic modulus and mass density. The efficiency and accuracy of the proposed SFEM algorithm were validated through comparison with results of the MCS method.