Performance-Based Design of bridge structures subjected to multiple hazards: a review

The paper looks at various issues related to the Performance-Based Design (PBD) of bridges subjected to simultaneous and/or cascaded hazards. After an introduction highlighting the main challenges in the current state of play, a brief account of historic cases of bridges stroked by multi-hazard actions is provided. Using as a reference framework the PBD approach developed by the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research (PEER) centre for the seismic input, a review of recent studies related to multi-hazard structural engineering is reported. In the final part of the paper, a proposal for extending the PEER approach to the case of bridges under multiple hazards is outlined, and some considerations are offered on the research effort still needed to fully develop the procedure. © 2012 Taylor & Francis Group.