Vulnerability Assessment of Coastal Bridges

• Adriana Mercado Cruz, Civil Engineering, University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez

• Monique Head, Civil Engineering, University of Delaware

Climate change and global warming pose a threat to coastal infrastructure, causing these to withstand the effects of extreme weather conditions such as storms, hurricanes, and sea level rise. Prior research has shown that an increase in water depth contributes to higher intensity hydrodynamic forces. According to the ASCE 2021 infrastructure report card, 42% of bridges in the United States are over 50 years old, while bridges are usually designed for a service life of 50 years. This research study focuses on evaluating how different design approaches for hydrodynamic loadings estimation will affect coastal bridges pier piles performance. This comparative analysis is also evaluating the differences in different design approaches and real time collected data when comparing current sea level conditions as well as incorporating the sea level rise projections of year 2072 using “intermediate high” scenario of NOAA. This research was conducted by modeling a single span multistringer prestressed box beam bridge with two lanes, located in Slaughter Beach, Delaware. This model was subjected to the different hydrodynamic loads under the different design approaches considering current conditions and future projections for sea level rise. This allowed us to assess the vulnerability of the bridge piles by comparing the shear and moment values for each pile under every evaluated scenario. Future research could conduct different analytical and experimental analysis for different design approaches on alternate bridges.