Reliability analysis of bridge pier against scour and earthquake

Many bridges located in seismic hazard regions suffer from serious foundation exposure caused by river bed scour-which immensely reduce the lateral strength of pile foundation. In the present study, an attempt was made to study the reliability of the bridge pier under increased values of ground motion shaking to the bridge structure together with the consideration of scouring in the pier. To achieve a desired safety level in the design of pier foundation, reliability based parameter is evaluated. The study shows that maximum bending moment increased up to its capacity and then decreases with the increased PGA (g) values for both rigid and scour bed foundation. The reliability analysis of the bridge indicates that the failure probability is increased with the increase in PGA (g) and it is higher for scour bed than the rigid bed.