Fragility analysis for vehicle derailment on railway bridges under earthquakes

Abstract With the rapid development of high-speed railways around globe, safety vehicles running on bridges during earthquakes has been paid more attention to. In design railway bridges, in addition to ensuring bridge structure earthquake, vehicle should also be ensured. Previous studies have focused detailed analysis derailment proposing complex numerical algorithms for wheel–rail contact as well parametric analysis, but they are inconvenient designers. Intensity measure (IM) used performance-based earthquake engineering is introduced this study. A method evaluate under proposed with respect optimal IM. Then, case Kumamoto Japan verifies decoupling vehicle–bridge interaction model. assessment derailments, eight IMs systematically compared: deck motion generally better than those ground motion; variation coefficient spectral intensity smallest at different frequencies. Finally, fragility cloud map presented earthquakes.