Time history analysis of different bridge configurations using rayleigh and modal damping

Energy dissipation and damping modeling of reinforced concrete (RC) bridge structures during earthquakes is crucial for nonlinear time history analysis. Rayleigh damping and Modal damping are common forms of representing linear viscous inherent damping in numerical models. This paper investigates the seismic response variations of different RC bridge configurations due to applying different damping modeling characteristics under different seismic intensities. Three damping modeling scenarios are considered in this study: Rayleigh damping with initial stiffness, Rayleigh damping with tangent stiffness, and Modal damping. The considered bridge configurations are: straight single frame bridge (S-Str), skewed single frame bridge (S-Skwd), straight multi-frame (M-Str), skewed multi-frame bridge (M-Skwd), and curved multi-frame bridge (M-Curv). The results of nonlinear response history analyses indicated that seismic responses of all the bridge configurations are affected by damping modeling characteristics. The extent of analysis results variation depends on the seismic intensity and bridge configurations.