Integrated Approach for Estimating Extreme Hydrodynamic Loads on Elevated Pile Cap Foundation Using Environmental Contour of Simulated Typhoon Wave, Current, and Surge Conditions

Abstract Typhoon is a disastrous weather system, which usually induces strong waves, currents, and surges along the coastal area, and causes severe hydrodynamic loads on the elevated pile cap foundation, which is widely used to support the sea-crossing bridge. Estimating the hydrodynamic loads under typhoons is essential to ensure the bridge's safety. This paper develops an environmental contour-based framework that can estimate the extreme hydrodynamic loads induced by typhoons while considering the correlation among environmental conditions. The elevated pile cap foundation of the Xihoumen Rail-cum-road Bridge was used to illustrate the framework. The SWAN + ADCIRC model was employed to simulate the environmental conditions under typhoons. The pair-copulas were adopted to construct joint probability distributions, and the environmental contours with a given return period were then established by the inverse first-order reliability method. Given the hydrodynamic model and short-term peak value of the structural response, the AK-LHS method was then used to find the maximum hydrodynamic loads based on the environmental contours. The environmental contour constructing methods and selection methods of short-term peak values were compared and discussed. The main findings include: (1) ignoring correlations of the environmental conditions overestimates the extreme hydrodynamic loads and results in a conservative design; (2) the estimation of extreme hydrodynamic loads is affected by the selection and fitting of short-term peak values significantly; and (3) the extreme hydrodynamic loads estimated by either Rosenblatt transformation or Nataf transformation shows similar results.