A probabilistic strategy for seismic assessment and FRP retrofitting of existing bridges

This study proposes a holistic probabilistic framework to evaluate existing road and railway bridges after an earthquake by means of analytical fragility curves and visual inspections. Although visual inspections are affected by uncertainties, they are usually considered in a deterministic way, while in this work they are taken into account in a probabilistic point manner. Moreover, extra focus is given on retrofitting interventions by means of Fiber Reinforced Polymer materials and their costs. A probabilistic methodology is formed to evaluate possible standardized interventions on existing bridges after a seismic event. The proposed framework, consists of six basic steps and it is applied on a reinforced concrete bridge case study, which is a common structural typology in Italian roadway infrastructural networks. The main aim is to provide useful information to public authorities in order to decide whether or not they should allowtraffic over the bridge andwhether to repair immediately earthquake damaged bridges. The outcomes of this framework can be used to improve procedures used for the seismic assessment of the whole road and railway networks to better plan emergency, post-emergency actions and define a general priority for an optimal budget allocation