Ductility Assesment of Damaged RC Bridge Piers w with Lap-Spliced Bars

This research is to evaluate the seismic performance of reinforced concrete bridge piers with lap-spliced longitudinal reinforcement steels in the plastic hinge region, and to develop the enhancement scheme of their seismic capacity. Six circular columns of 0.6m diameter and 1.5m height were made with two confinement steel ratios. They were damaged under series of artificial earthquakes that could be compatible in Korean peninsula. Directly after the pseudo-dynamic test, damaged columns were retested under inelastic reversal cyclic loading simultaneously under an axial load, P=$0.1f_{ck}A_{g}$, and residual seismic performance of damaged columns was evaluated. Test results show that RC bridge piers with lap-spliced longitudinal steels behaved with minor damage even under artificial earthquakes with 0.22g PGA, but failed at low ductility subjected to the subsequent quasi-static load test. This failure was due to the debonding of the lap splice. The specimens externally wrapped with composite FRP straps in the potential plastic hinge region showed significant improvement both in flexural strength and displacement ductility.