• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.343-350
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• 2009

In the present study, a new seismic retrofitting method that employs both a stainless steel wire mesh and a permeable polymer concrete mortar was proposed for reinforced concrete bridge piers with nonseismic design details. For this purpose, a total of six nonseismically designed bridge piers were tested under lateral load reversals. The test results reveal that nonseismically designed piers with lap splices need to be retrofitted to resist earthquake induced forces. In addition, it was proven that the proposed retrofitting method can be useful in improving the strength, stiffness, and energy dissipation capacities of bridge piers designed nonseismically. It is thus expected that the proposed method may provide an improved ductility capacity without sudden softening of strength for bridge piers excursing inelastic displacement range.