Bridges are vital to any transportation infrastructure and have the potential to highly impact an economic network if damaged and/or inaccessible. One of the major components in a bridge system is the bridge pier, which has to support several loading scenarios. This study focuses on the reliability of a reinforced concrete bridge pier subject to vehicular impact loading, which is designated as a hazardous load. Hazardous loads are typically high-intensity loads that are short in duration. These types of loads are receiving increased attention due to recent occurrences and their ability to initiate structural failure. To study the reliability of the bridge piers under this loading, Monte Carlo simulation is used in a first-order, second-moment reliability analysis on several column resistance and impact event combinations. The reliability analysis is carried out for five different vehicle classes to represent the likely vehicles to participate in the impact event. Additionally, sensitivity analysis is carried out to identify the factors that most contribute to high probabilities of failure: reinforcement area, vehicle speed, and vehicle mass. Fragility curves are generated to provide a graphical representation of the sensitivity analysis.
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