Seismic Retrofit of Highway Bridges Workshop
Course Description:
This one day structural engineering seminar is sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration in cooperation with your local State Department of Transportation. The seminar will provide engineers training in the fundamental principles of seismic hazard analysis as well as the methodology for seismic risk analysis using fragility curves and the use of risk in seismic screening and prioritization. The course will also detail the six different methods provided in the FHWA Seismic Retrofitting Manual for Highway Structures for the seismic evaluation of existing bridges at the component and structure level (including the capacity-spectrum method) and demonstrate their use through numerical examples.
The course will introduce the process of using the above methods to identify appropriate seismic retrofitting strategies for vulnerable superstructures, substructures, and foundations. It will provide numerical examples demonstrating the design of seismic cable restrainers, column jacketing (steel, concrete and FRP) to improve ductility and shear strength, and pile foundation retrofits. The training will be useful to engineers with an understanding of structural dynamics and bridge design experience (or who have participated in the Resource Center's Seismic Bridge Analysis and Design Workshop), as well as to those who are involved in state risk management planning for bridges subjected to seismic hazard.
Learning Outcomes:
By the end of this course, participants should be able to:
Target Audience:
The target audience is structural design engineers and bridge management engineers who are responsible for designing highway bridges or implementing state seismic risk management plans.
To Schedule, contact:
Jeffrey Ger, Senior Structural Engineer, (202) 868-3788, Jeffrey.Ger@dot.gov
Instructor Bios:
Jeffrey Ger, P.E., is a Senior Structural Engineer with the Federal Highway Administration's Resource Center in Atlanta, Georgia, and was the FHWA Division Bridge Engineer in Florida. Before joining FHWA, he worked with the Missouri Department of Transportation where he was extensively involved with projects for the seismic retrofitting and strengthening of bridges in Missouri. He received his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla. He has published more than 50 technical papers in structural engineering. In 2011, he published a book entitled "Seismic Design Aids for Nonlinear Pushover Analysis of Reinforced Concrete and Steel Bridges". Dr. Ger was appointed as one of the seven members of US Transportation Infrastructure Reconnaissance Team traveling to Chile in April 2010, to assess the bridge damage condition due to the February 27, 2010, Chile earthquake.
Derek Soden,P.E., is a Senior Structural Engineer with the Federal Highway Administration's Resource Center in Denver, Colorado. As a member of the Structures Technical Services Team, Derek provides technical assistance and training in the areas of bridge design, construction, and inspection. From 2009 to 2012, Derek was the Assistant Division Bridge Engineer for FHWA's Florida and Puerto Rico Divisions. From 1998 to 2009, Derek was a design engineer for the Alaska Department of Transportation where he developed designs for new bridges and bridge repair, rehabilitation and seismic retrofit projects throughout the state. He also provided technical support on bridge construction issues, specification development, and the Bridge Section's AASHTO technical committee work in seismic and foundation engineering. Derek received his B.S. in Civil Engineering in 1997 from the University of Alaska in Fairbanks (where he was born and raised) and his M.S. in Structural Engineering in 1998 from the University of California, Berkeley.
Email: Derek.Soden@dot.gov Tel: (720) 413-7436
Registration Fee
The course is free of charge to those attending, but is offered on a 'reservation-only' basis and limited to seat availability.
Seminar Agenda
8:00 am Welcome, Introductions
8:30 am Seismic hazard analysis
9:00 am Fragility curve generation
9:45 am Break
10:00 am Screening and prioritization by seismic risk analysis
10:30 am Seismic evaluation methods
(noon) Lunch (on-your-own)
1:00 pm Seismic retrofit strategies for superstructure
2:00 pm Seismic analysis and design of cable restrainers
2:45 pm Break
3:00 pm Seismic retrofit strategies for columns
4:00 pm Seismic retrofit strategies for foundations
4:30 pm Adjourn