Dear Dr. XXX:

This is in reference to your manuscript submitted for publication
in Shock and Vibration.  In light of the recommendation that I
have received on your paper (see below), I regret to inform you
that I am unable to accept your paper for publication.  I hope
that you will be able to use the reviewers’ comments for any
future publication of the manuscript that you may plan.

The reviewers have raised a number of good points that I hope you
will be able to consider for any future publication of your paper
in Shock and Vibration or other journals.  If you choose to
re-submit your paper to this journal, please re-submit your paper
as a new paper online (see
http://www.mstracker.com/submit1.php?jc=sv), and indicate in your
cover letter that it is a re-submission of an earlier rejected
paper with Tracking Number 12-620.  Please provide reference to
this tracking number in your letter.  I will assign your paper to
the same Associate Editor that handled your original paper, and
will inform you of the decision on your revised paper as soon as
it is available, commonly in 4 – 5 months since the revised paper
has to undergo another round of reviews.

Please note that your paper requires significant linguistic
improvements.  Without such improvements I will not be able to
accept your paper for publication.  I suggest that you thoroughly
revise the paper's writing style and have it proofread by someone
that is fluent in English writing.

When you revise your manuscript please highlight the changes you
make to the manuscript by using the track changes mode in MS Word
or by using bold or colored text.  You also need to submit a
point-by-point rebuttal to the reviewers’ comments and concerns. 
Your rebuttal needs to be included at the end of your manuscript,
and the whole package submitted as a single document.  


Sincerely,

Mehdi Ahmadian
Editor-in-Chief
Shock and Vibration

---------------------

ASSOCIATE EDITOR’S RECOMMENDATION

Revise and Resubmit After Major Revisions

In the present study, the authors have used numerical finite
element modelling for analyzing the high-speed railway multi-span
simply supported bridge under earthquake excitations based on the
PEER-NAG Strong Ground Motion Database. The natural vibration
properties and elasto-plastic seismic response of the bridge
system subjected to the near-fault directivity pulse-like ground
motion are computed. ANSYS software package, ANSYS-APDL language
and self-compiled moment-curvature relationship program are used
to set up the spatial analysis model of the considered system. 
Based on the obtained numerical results, some remarkable findings
are presented. 
Comments to the Author:
Some basic points that led to improve the paper are the
following:
The presentation of this work is not well constructed. The text
clarity should be improved.
The paper should be free from any grammatical and punctuation
mistakes. Unnecessarily lengthy and inaccurately constructed
sentences cause the lack of attention in reading this manuscript.
It is better to break down those sentences in number of small
sentences. Unnecessarily repetition of the same sentences should
be avoided in the text.  
In this study, the simulation of the moving load is not clearly
defined.  A more detailed description is required. Further
explanations are also required for the problem formulation
employed in the Finite Element Analysis.
There is no way to verify and evaluate the obtained results of
the proposed numerical model and hence the results are not
completely reliable.

The manuscript under review investigates the nonlinear response
of a high-speed railway bridge to near-fault pulse-like seismic
motions. The manuscript provides useful information to earthquake
engineers and adheres to the theme of Shock and Vibration. In the
following, comments and suggestions are listed which may help the
authors in revising and improving their manuscript.

1. The authors should employ the services of an
English-proficient technical editor to edit the manuscript before
resubmitting it to Shock and Vibration.

2. The authors should address the following question in the
revised version of the manuscript: How reliable and widely
applicable are the results of their analysis when are based on
such a limited number of actual ground motion records? The
authors should clearly state the limitations of their analysis.

3. The authors should correct "PEER-NAG database" to "PEER-NGA
database" everywhere in the manuscript.

4. In the literature review, along with references [4-6], the
authors may also want to refer to Sasani and Bertero (2000,
12WCEE). Also, References [6] and Hubbard and Mavroeidis (2011,
SDEE) indicate that the duration of the near-fault directivity
motions clearly affects the characteristics of their response
spectra, as well as the corresponding damping modification
factors. This is a very important property of the near-fault
pulse-type seismic motions.

5. On page 3 of the manuscript, the same paragraph appears twice
in the text. Please correct.

6. On page 3, the authors mention that a total of 6 records were
selected for the nonlinear analysis, divided into two sets of 3
and 7 records. Please correct.

7. Figure numbering is not consistent with the text.