Performance-based prioritisation for seismic retrofitting of reinforced concrete bridge bent

In this study, a seismically deficient three-column reinforced concrete bridge bent has been considered which was designed in the pre-1965. Several retrofitting provisions, namely carbon-fibre-reinforced plastics jacketing, steel jacketing, concrete jacketing, and engineered cementitious composites jacketing, have been considered in this study to enhance the seismic resistance and the performance of a gravity load-designed bridge bent under seismic forces. Performance evaluation and optimal selection of retrofit techniques have multi-level and multi-factor features and, therefore, are regarded as multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem. MCDM methods are decision-support procedures, which are used when there are multiple decision-makers involved in the evaluation and comparison of a set of alternatives involving different evaluation criteria. This paper shows the application of such methodological framework for a performance-based seismic retrofit selection of a multi-column bridge bent. Here, different seismic retrofit strategies, reflecting common as well as innovative approaches, are adopted, and their seismic performances are compared by using the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution MCDM algorithm. Through rigorous analyses, a decision-making tool has been developed to identify the most effective retrofitting scheme considering its seismic performance alone.