• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.19-26
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• 2007

Until recently Korea is considered to be immune from the earthquake hazard because it is located for away from the active fault. However, we have noticed that recent strong earthquakes inflicted enormous losses on human lives and nation's economy all over the world. Hence, there has been raised the importance of the earthquake resistant design for various infrastructures. In this research, new methodologies for the seismic design and performance assessment of reinforced concrete(RC) bridge pier were proposed from experimental results of 82 circular RC bridge piers and 54 rectangular RC bridge piers tested in domestic and aboard. New seismic design method was based on the concept of the limited ductile design, which could be practically used for low or moderate seismic regions like Korea. Further study for the seismic safety of RC bridge piers was carried out to enhance the seismic performance of aged RC bridge piers, which were designed and constructed before implementing the 1992 seismic design provision in Korea. New formula for the seismic performance assessment of RC bridge piers was proposed and practically used for the decision on the need of repair and retrofit of many aged RC bridge piers.