• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.16 no.5 s.83
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• pp.697-707
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• 2004

Most bridge piers were practically designed and constructed with lap spliced longitudinal reinforcing steels before the 1992 seismic design provisions of Korea Bridge Design Specification were implemented. It has been known that lap splice of longitudinal reinforcement in the plastic hinge region is not desirable for seismic performance of RC bridge piers. The objective of this research is to evaluate the seismic performance of existing circular reinforced concrete bridge piers by the Quasi-static test and to propose the need of seismic retrofit of existing bridge piers through the damage level. Test specimens were nonseismically designed with the aspect ratio 4.0 which could induce the flexural failure mode. It was confirmed from this experiment that significant reduction of seismic performance was observed for test specimens with lap spliced longitudinal reinforcing steels. Pertinent seismic retrofit was determined to be needed for existing RC bridge piers with the lap-spliced of $50\%$ longitudinal reinforcing steels.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.16 no.6 s.84
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• pp.823-832
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• 2004

The purpose of this research is to investigate the flexure-shear behavior of bridge columns under seismic loads. Four full scale circular reinforced concrete columns were tested under cyclic lateral load with constant axial load. The selected test variables are aspect ratio(1.825, 2.5, 4.0), transverse steel configuration, and longitudinal steel ratio. Volumetric ratio of transverse hoop of all the columns is 0.0023 in the plastic hinge region. It corresponds to $24\%$ of the minimum requirement of confining steel by Korean Bridge Design Specifications, which represent existing columns not designed by the current seismic design specifications or designed by limited ductility concept. The columns showed flexural failure or flexure-shear failure depending on the test variables. Failure behavior and seismic performance are investigated and discussed in this paper.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.180-189
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• 2002

The objective of this experimental research is to assess the seismic performance of circular RC bridge pier specimens retrofitted with fibers which were designed as a prototype of Hagal bridge in the city of Suwon, Korea. Pseudo dynamic test has been done for four(4) test specimens which were nonseismically or seismically designed by the related provisions of the Korea roadway bridge design specification, and four nonseisemic test specimens retrofitted with fibers in the plastic hinge region. Glass and carbon fiber sheets were used for the seismic capacity enhancement of circular test specimens. Important test parameters were confinement steel ratio, load pattern, and retrofitting. The seismic behavior has been analyzed through the displacement ductility, energy analysis, and capacity spectrum. Approximate 7.7 ∼8.7 displacement ductility was observed for nonseismic test specimens retrofitted with fibers subjected to Korea Highway Cooperation artificial earthquake motions. It is concluded that these retrofitted test specimens could have sufficient seismic capacity in the region of moderate seismic zone.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.10 no.2 s.48
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• pp.1-10
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• 2006

Reinforced concrete bridge columns with relatively small aspect ratio show flexure-shear behavior, which is flexural behavior at initial and medium displacement stages and shear failure at final stage. Since the columns with flexure-shear failure have lower ductility than those with flexural failure, shear capacity curve models shall be applied as well as flexural capacity curve in order to determine ultimate displacement for seismic design or performance evaluation. In this paper, a modified shear capacity curve model is proposed and compared with the other models such as the CALTRANS model, Aschheim et al.'s model, and Priestley et al.'s model. Four shear capacity curve models are applied to the 4 full scale circular bridge column test results and the accuracy of each model is discussed. It may not be fully adequate to drive a final decision from the application to the limited number of test results, however the proposed model provides the better prediction of failure mode and ultimate displacement than the other models for the selected column test results.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.131-142
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• 2021

For old piers constructed when seismic design code had not been developed, lap splices usually exist in plastic hinge region. Corrosion of rebars causes decreasement in cross-sectional area of rebar and deterioration of lap-splice behaviour, thereby reducing the seismic performance of the old piers. In this research, according to these characteristics of old piers, test specimens are designed and manufactured considering rebar corrosion, lap splice, seismic design details, and seismic reinforcement. These effects are investigated through experiments. As a result of these experiment, rebar corrosion as well as lap splice reduces displacement ductility. When seismic design details or steel-plate reinforcement are applied, sufficient displacement ductility is expressed. For non-seismically designed specimens, loosening of the lap splice of transverse rebars caused buckling of longitudinal rebars and crushing of core concrete in plastic hinge region . For seismically designed specimen, area-reducing and untying of transverse rebars due to corrosion of rebars caused buckling of longitudinal rebars and crushing of core concrete.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.41-54
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• 1999

Because of relatively heavy dead weight of concrete itself and unavoidable heat of massive concrete in bridge piers, circular hollow columns are widely used in Korean highway bridges. Since the occurrence of 1995 Kobe earthquake, there have been much concerns about seismic design for various infrastructures, inclusive of bridge structures. It is, however, understood that there are not much research works for nonlinear behavior of circular hollow columns subjected to eqrthquake motions. The objective of this experimental research is to investigate nonlinear behavior of circular hollow reinforced concrete bridge piers under the quasi-static cyclic load, and then to enhance their ductility by strengthening the plastic hinge region with glassfiber sheets. Particularly for this test, constant 10 cyclic loads have been repeatedly actuated to investigate the magnitude of strength degradation for the displacement ductility factor. Important test parameters are seismic design, confinement steel ratio, axial force and load pattern. It is observed from quasi-static tests for 7 bridge piers that the seismically designed columns and the retrofitted columns show better performance than the nonseismically designed colums, i.e. about 20% higher for energy dissipation capacity and about 70% higher for curvatures.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.1695-1705
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• 2014

In the present study, a total of 275 tested specimens (149 of non-seismically designed and 126 of seismically designed) for reinforced concrete bridge piers with circular section have been investigated in order to suggest drift limits probabilistically according to damage states in seismic fragility analysis. Thus, quantitative damage states of the piers have been evaluated depending on details of the piers. Nonlinear time-history analyses have been conducted for a damaged bridge in terms of using the suggested drift limits. Then, seismic fragility analysis for a reinforced concrete bridge structure has been conducted using both suggested and existing drift limits. Comparative analyses have revealed that median values by the suggested limits is smaller than those by the existing limits. This implies that seismic performance of the structure can be overestimated when the existing limits are used.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.147-157
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• 2018

The basis of capacity design has been explicitly or implicitly regulated in most bridge design specifications. It is to guarantee ductile failure of entire bridge system by preventing brittle failure of pier members and any other structural members until the columns provides fully enough plastic rotation capacity. Brittle shear is regarded as a mode of failure that should be avoided in reinforced concrete bridge pier design. To provide ductility behavior of column, the one of important factors is that flexural hinge of column must be detailed to ensure adequate and dependable shear strength and deformation capacity. Eight small scale circular reinforced concrete columns were tested under cyclic lateral load with 4.5 aspect ratio. The test variables are longitudinal steel ratio, transverse steel ratio, and axial load ratio. Eight flexurally dominated columns were tested. In all specimens, initial flexural-shear cracks occurred at 1.5% drift ratio. The multiple flexural-shear crack width and length gradually increased until the final stage. The angles of the major inclined cracks measured from the vertical column axis ranged between 42 and 48 degrees. In particular, this study focused on assessing transverse reinforcement contribution to the column shear strength. Transverse reinforcement contribution measured during test. Each three components of transverse reinforcement contribution, axial force contribution and concrete contribution were investigated and compared. It was assessed that the concrete stresses of all specimen were larger than stress limit of Korea Bridge Design Specifications.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.39-48
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• 2010

Improved seismic performances of RC bridges can be attained by sufficient ductilities of piers, which can be obtained by providing sufficient lateral confinements to the plastic hinge regions of piers. The cross sectional shape and the amount of lateral reinforcements are key parameters in the determination of effective confinements. Even though identical amounts of lateral reinforcement are provided, the effective confinement differs due to different spacing, arrangements, hook details and so on. Unlike circular sections in which confinement is exerted by mere hoop reinforcements, cross-ties are arranged in square or rectangular sections to enhance the effective confinements. The stress-strain relationship of confined concrete is varied by how to consider these cross-ties. In this study, the stress-strain relationships of confined concrete with cross-ties are investigated experimentally and their mechanical characteristics are estimated by comparison with other empirical equations.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.10 no.3 s.49
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• pp.47-55
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• 2006

Seismic performance and retrofit of reinforced concrete (RC) two-column piers widely used at roadway bridges in Korea was experimentally evaluated. Ten two-column piers that were 400 mm in diameter and 2,000 mm in height were constructed. These piers were subjected to hi-directional cyclic loadings under a constant axial load of $0.1f_{ck}A_g$. Test parameters were the confinement steel ratio, loading pattern, lap splice of longitudinal reinforcing bars, and retrofitting method. Specimens with lap-spliced longitudinal bars were retrofitted with steel jacket, pre-stressing steel wire, and steel band. Test result showed that while the specimens subjected to bi-directional lateral cyclic loadings which consisted of two main amplitudes in the transverse axis and two sub amplitudes in longitudinal axis, referred to as a T-series cyclic loadings, exhibited plastic hinges both at the top and bottom parts of the column, the specimens subjected to bi-directional lateral cyclic loadings in an opposite way, referred to as a L-series cyclic loadings, exhibited a plastic hinge only at the bottom of the column. The displacement ductility of the specimen under the T-series loadings was bigger than that of the specimen under the L-series loadings. Specimen retrofitted with pre-stressing steel wires exhibited poor ductility due to the upward shift of the plastic hinge region because of over-reinforcement, but specimens retrofitted with steel jacket and steel band showed the required displacement ductility. Steel band can be an effective retrofitting scheme to improve the seimsic performance of RC bridge piers, considering its practical construction.