Structural response of bridges to fire after explosion

Since the tragic events of September 11th, the structural safety against terroristic attacks has become a relevant issue for strategic structures and the threat of malevolent attacks against a transportation infrastructure is very realistic. Bridges are strategic infrastructures with well-known importance for the community. A bridge failure is an event that compromises the socio economic stability of a country, and for this reason studying how to design and verify bridges under malevolent explosions followed by fire is a tactic for the defense of the community from terroristic attack. In this paper the structural response of a bridge engaged by fire of vehicles ignited after an explosion provoked by a track bomb is carried out. A set of structural nonlinear transient analyses is carried out by means of a finite element code, taking into account both thermoplastic properties of elements and geometrical nonlinearities. © 2012 Taylor & Francis Group