Theory and experimental verification of a resultant response-based method for assessing the critical seismic excitation direction of curved bridges

•A resultant response-based (RRB) method is developed to assess the critical seismic incidence angle.•A multi-angle shaking table test on a 1/62.5-scale model of a curved bridge is implemented.•The test validates the applicability of the RRB method for realistic bridge configurations.•The RRB method has sufficient precision and low computational cost.