Many researches have been currently conducted on the effects of fault distance on structures revealing that their seismic response can differ according to their distance from the fault. Suspension bridges due to their long period and high flexibility can be more sensitive to this phenomenon, especially in vertical vibration. Since the engineers tend to use longer spans, the length factor should be studied more accurately. In this paper, the effects of length factor on the seismic response of the suspension bridge under near and far-fault ground motions were addressed. The Vincent Thomas and Golden Gate suspension bridges as short and long ones, respectively, are selected as the case studies. The seismic responses of two bridges under five main worldwide ground motions contained both near and far-fault ones, with the same peak ground’s acceleration, are evaluated. The results indicated that the response of both bridges to the near and far-fault ground motions are perfectly different. Short span suspension bridges are vulnerable to near-fault ground motions, whereas long span ones are completely susceptible to both near and far-fault ground motions, and by increasing the length of span, the sensitivity of bridge was increased against far-fault low frequency excitations. Also, maximum displacement responses of spans in both bridges did not increase by maximizing peak ground’s acceleration.

Keywords: Near-fault ground motions, Far-fault ground motions, Suspension bridge, Vertical vibration, Length factor.

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