Abstract
Port transit transfer stations (TTS) commonly comprise terminal buildings connected to access bridges. In such configurations, the connection participates in the lateral load path and can influence the distribution of forces and the mobilised resistance under wind loading. However, in wind fragility assessment the building and bridge are often analysed separately or combined from separate asset fragilities without representing the connection. This simplification can lead to different exceedance estimates for the connected arrangement and does not capture how reduced foundation restraint (used here as a proxy for scour-related support degradation) and deterioration affect the coupled response.
Following a performance-based fragility assessment framework, this thesis derives wind fragility and consequence estimates for a reinforced concrete terminal building connected to an access bridge. The connected arrangement is assessed using displacement-controlled nonlinear static analysis under a fixed wind intensity measure definition and wind-to-action conversion, so that differences in fragility reflect changes in structural condition rather than changes in loading definition. A detailed three-dimensional finite element model is developed with compatibility enforced at the building–bridge interface, and changes in support restraint and deterioration are represented through modifications to the vertical Winkler spring-field and property reduction scenarios, respectively, with each case analysed independently to avoid mixing boundary conditions. Analytical fragility functions are derived for four damage states (DS1–DS4) defined as strength-based capacity points on the base shear–control displacement curve. Consequences are then estimated using published relationships between damage state exceedance and loss metrics. The results show that a connected analysis can give different exceedance behaviour from estimates obtained by combining separate asset fragilities. For wind-only loading, the TTS and an aligned building-only comparator have similar fitted medians (within approximately ±2.2% across DS1–DS4), whereas the uncoupled independence/union combination yields lower medians for DS2–DS4 (reductions of 19.5–28.4% relative to the TTS). Support loss mainly shifts the lower damage states, while the peak resistance state is less sensitive with combined condition results indicating DS1–DS2 median reductions of 11.5–14.8% between 25% and 50% support loss across scenarios, compared with DS4 reductions of 6.6–9.9%. Deterioration shifts fragilities across all damage states. At 50% support loss, DS4 median sensitivity to deterioration is pattern-dependent: Uniform deterioration reduces the DS4 median by 10.3% (Low-Uniform to High-Uniform), whereas the Outside pattern reduces the DS4 median by 2.6% over the same severity change. The thesis presents a wind fragility and consequence procedure for a TTS that treats support restraint and deterioration as analysed states and demonstrates that combining separate asset fragilities does not necessarily reproduce the connected response.