To meet the economic, social and infrastructure needs of the community for safe and efficient transportation systems, long span bridges have been built throughout the world. Long span bridges are one of the most challenging kinds of structures in civil engineering. The cable-stayed bridges are of great interest mainly as an alternative and a more economic solution than the one of suspension bridges. In addition, the fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composites are, nowadays, successfully used for constructing modern bridges, where the significant weight saving provides additional benefits. Because of the great flexibility, modern long-span cable-stayed bridges are usually very susceptible to dynamic loads especially to the earthquake and strong winds. Therefore, the earthquake-resistant and wind-resistant designs become one of key issues for successful construction of bridges. The objective of the present research is to develop a very efficient spline finite strip technique, for modelling and analysis of both conventional and hybrid FRP cable-stayed bridges. The study falls into the categories of bending, free vibration, seismic, and aerodynamic flutter analysis. The spline finite strip method (SFSM) is one of the most efficient numerical methods for structural analysis of bridges, reducing the time required for estimating the structural response without affecting the degree of accuracy. In the finite strip method, the degrees of freedom could be significantly reduced due to the semi-analytical nature of this method. However, the previous versions of SFSM are not able to model the entire bridge system. For that reason, the structural interactions between different structural components of the bridge could not be handled. In addition, the vibrations and displacements of the towers and cables could not be investigated. In the present formulation, all these obstacles have been eliminated. Moreover, the proposed finite strip technique is very efficient and accurate due to the drastic reduction in the formulation time, simplicity of data preparation, rapid rate convergence of the results, and the semi-analytical nature. Last but not least, and for the first time, a fully finite strip solution is extended to the area of wind engineering. Using the spline finite strip discretization, the aerodynamic stiffness and mass properties of the long-span cable-stayed bridge are derived. The aerodynamic properties along with the structural properties of long-span plates and bridges are formulated in the aerodynamic equation of motion and are used to analyze the flutter problem. The accuracy and efficiency of the proposed advanced finite strip method is verified against the finite element and field measurement results. The results demonstrate that this methodology and the associated computer code can accurately predict the dynamic and aerodynamic responses of the conventional and FRP long-span cable-stayed bridge systems. The outcome of the present research will lead to a comprehensive structural analysis of bridges in the framework of the proposed discretization which is more efficient and straightforward than the finite element analysis.

Bridges are critical components of highway networks, which provide mobility and economical vitality to a nation. Ensuring the safety and regular operation as well as accurate structural assessment of bridges is essential. Structural Identification (St-Id) can be utilized for better assessment of structures by integrating experimental and analytical technologies in support of decision-making. St-Id is defined as creating parametric or nonparametric models to characterize structural behavior based on structural health monitoring (SHM) data. In a recent study by the ASCE St-Id Committee, St-Id framework is given in six steps, including modeling, experimentation and ultimately decision making for estimating the performance and vulnerability of structural systems reliably through the improved simulations using monitoring data. In some St-Id applications, there can be challenges and considerations related to this six-step framework. For instance not all of the steps can be employed; thereby a subset of the six steps can be adapted for some cases based on the various limitations. In addition, each step has its own characteristics, challenges, and uncertainties due to the considerations such as time varying nature of civil structures, modeling and measurements. It is often discussed that even a calibrated model has limitations in fully representing an existing structure; therefore, a family of models may be well suited to represent the structure’s response and performance in a probabilistic manner. The principle objective of this dissertation is to investigate nonparametric and parametric St-Id approaches by considering uncertainties coming from different sources to better assess the structural condition for decision making. In the first part of the dissertation, a nonparametric StId approach is employed without the use of an analytical model. The new methodology, which is iv successfully demonstrated on both lab and real-life structures, can identify and locate the damage by tracking correlation coefficients between strain time histories and can locate the damage from the generated correlation matrices of different strain time histories. This methodology is found to be load independent, computationally efficient, easy to use, especially for handling large amounts of monitoring data, and capable of identifying the effectiveness of the maintenance. In the second part, a parametric St-Id approach is introduced by developing a family of models using Monte Carlo simulations and finite element analyses to explore the uncertainty effects on performance predictions in terms of load rating and structural reliability. The family of models is developed from a parent model, which is calibrated using monitoring data. In this dissertation, the calibration is carried out using artificial neural networks (ANNs) and the approach and results are demonstrated on a laboratory structure and a real-life movable bridge, where predictive analyses are carried out for performance decrease due to deterioration, damage, and traffic increase over time. In addition, a long-span bridge is investigated using the same approach when the bridge is retrofitted. The family of models for these structures is employed to determine the component and system reliability, as well as the load rating, with a distribution that incorporates various uncertainties that were defined and characterized. It is observed that the uncertainties play a considerable role even when compared to calibrated model-based predictions for reliability and load rating, especially when the structure is complex, deteriorated and aged, and subjected to variable environmental and operational conditions. It is recommended that a family-of-models approach is suitable for structures that have less redundancy, high operational importance, are deteriorated, and are performing under close capacity and demand levels

The finite strip method (FSM) is a very efficient numerical method employed for performing the structural analysis of slender structures, such as cable-stayed bridges; the strip discretization of the model allows for the usage of a lower number of degrees of freedom, in comparison with the finite element method (FEM), while, as it will be discussed in the current research, the results obtained from both methods are in relatively good agreement. Moreover, to address the latest developments in the area of smart construction materials used for long-span bridges, the fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composites were implemented for the bridge deck modeling, as part of a hybrid composite FRP cable-stayed bridge, and an extend laminate integrated finite strip method (LFSM) was applied for estimating the static structural performance of the hybrid composite FRP long-span cable-stayed bridge under several concentrated and uniformly distributed loadings. The free vibrations analysis was conducted for the Kap Shui Mun Cable-stayed Bridge model, and the natural frequencies were compared with the ones obtained from an FE model of the same bridge. One of the advantages of using the integrated finite strip method is that number of vibration modes, which can be included in the dynamic analysis when the effect of a sweeping sinus and a seismic loading are investigated when a conventional FE analysis would fail to converge. The outcomes of this research will set the stage for the hybrid long-span cable-stayed bridges modeling by the laminate integrated finite strip method (LFSM) which is more efficient and straightforward than the finite element analysis, for performing the static, free vibration, time domain, and frequency domain analyses.