• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.261-273
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• 2012

This study proposes and examines a circular composite bridge pier for seismic resistance. The axial and flexural strengths of the proposed bridge pier are provided by the longitudinal reinforcing bars and the concrete, while the transverse reinforcements used in the conventional reinforced concrete pier are replaced by the steel tube. The shear strength of this composite pier relies on the steel tube and the concrete. This system is similar to the steel jacketing method which strengthens the existing reinforced concrete bridge piers. However, no transverse shear reinforcing bar is used in the proposed composite bridge pier. A series of experimental studies is conducted to investigate the seismic resistant characteristics of the proposed circular composite pier. The effects of the longitudinal reinforcing bars, the shear span-to-diameter ratio, and the thickness of the steel tube on the performance of strength, ductility, and energy dissipation of the proposed pier are discussed. The experimental results show that the strength of the proposed circular composite bridge pier can be predicted accurately by the similar method used in the reinforced concrete piers with minor modification. From these experimental studies, it is found that the proposed circular composite bridge pier not only simplifies the construction work greatly but also provides excellent ductility and energy dissipation capacity under seismic lateral force.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.73-84
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• 2020

In the seismic design of bridges, formation of plastic hinges plays an important role in the dissipation of seismic energy. In the case of conventional fixed-base bridges, the plastic hinges are allowed to form in the superstructure alone. During seismic event, such bridges may be safe from collapse but the superstructure undergoes significant plastic deformations. As an alternative design approach, the plastic hinges are guided to form in the soil thereby utilizing the inevitable yielding of the soil. Rocking foundations work on this concept. The formation of plastic hinges in the soil reduces the load and displacement demands on the superstructure. This study aims at evaluating the seismic response of bridge pier supported on rocking shallow foundation. For this purpose, a BNWF model is implemented in OpenSees platform. The capability of the BNWF model to capture the SSI effects, nonlinear behavior and dynamic loading response are validated using the centrifuge and shake table test results. A comparative study is performed between the seismic response of the bridge pier supported on the rocking shallow foundation and conventional fixed-base foundation. Results of the study have established the beneficial effects of using the rocking shallow foundation for the seismic response analysis of the bridge piers.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.69-82
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• 2024

In the conventional seismic design approach for a bridge pier, the function of the stopper, and shear key are to serve as mechanisms for unseating prevention devices that retain and transmit the lateral load to the pier under strong earthquakes. This frequently inflicts immense shear forces and bending moments concentrated at the plastic hinge zone. In this study, a shear panel damper plus gap (SPDG) is proposed as a low-cost alternative with high energy dissipation capacity to improve the seismic performance of the pier. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the seismic performance of the pre-stressed concrete I girder (PCI-girder) bridge equipped with SPDG. The bridge structure was analyzed using nonlinear time history analysis with seven-scaled ground motion records using the guidelines of ASCE 7-10 standard. Consequently, the implementation of SPDG technology on the bridge system yielded a notable decrease in maximum displacement by 41.49% and a reduction in earthquake input energy by 51.05% in comparison to the traditional system. This indicates that the presence of SPDG was able to enhance the seismic performance of the existing conventional bridge structure, enabling an improvement from a collapse prevention (CP) level to an immediate occupancy (IO).

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Navigation and Port Research Conference
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• 2006.06b
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• pp.147-152
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• 2006

Nowadays, the redevelopment of the conventional pier in Busan port has been one of top issues on Busan port. Busan Port Authority has already launched a research project on that and the Master Plan undergoing. However, the conventional pier is still booming one for small vessels providing feeder service to and from Busan port and both Japanese ports and Chinese ones. Accordingly, there are several terminal operation companies(TOC) and union workers which make might be a major obstacle for the redevelopment. Furthermore, it has been said that alternative pier is necessary before starting redevelopment. Under such circumstance this paper tries to review the major limitations and provide some thought for the solution.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2003.03a
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• pp.377-384
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• 2003

Recently, there are much concerns about new and innovative transverse materials which could be used instead of conventional transverse steel in reinforced concrete bridge piers. FRP materials could be substituted for conventional transverse steel because of their sufficient strength, light weight, easy fabrication, and useful applicability to any shapes of pier sections, such as rectangular or circular sections. The objective of this research is to evaluate the seismic performance of reinforced concrete bridge pier specimens with FRP transverse reinforcement by means of the Quasi-Static test. In the first task, test columns were made using FRP rope, but these specimens appeared to fail at low displacement ductility levels due to insufficient confinement of strand extension itself. Therefore, the second task was to evaluate the seismic performance of test specimens transversely confined with FRP band. Although FRP banded specimens showed lower seismic performance than the specimen with spiral reinforcing steel, it satisfied with the response modification factor, 3, required for the single column of Korea bridge roadway design code. It was concluded that FRP band could be efficiently substituted for conventional reinforcing steel.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2000.10a
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• pp.617-622
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• 2000

In this study, effective compressive strength and nodal zone of Strut-and-Tie Model are studied to propose a new design method for RC T-type pier coping for prevention of sudden brittle failure. The coping which transmits loads of bridge to pier should be properly designed to retain ductile behavior. In order to carry out this proper design using STM, tie must yield before concrete fails, and a stress at strut should not exceed a certain effective stress. Therefore, reasonable determination of the effective compressive strength of strut by considering stress states at the nodal zone exactly is very important. Since conventional STM is applied under assumption that all nodes are under hydrostatic stress state, actual non-hydrostatic stress state in nodal zone caused by geometrical characteristics, loading conditions, support conditions of structures can not be considered properly. In order to apply STM for design of RC T-type pier coping, the non-hydrostatic stress state of nodal zone is considered and effective compressive strength is proposed. Then, a new design method of RC T-type pier coping which applies the principle of superposition to obtain optimum ductile behavior is rationally designed.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.1-18
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• 2008

The conventional design of bridge piers against scour uses scour equations which involve number of uncertain flow, sediments and structural parameters. The inherent high uncertainties in these parameters suggest that the reliability of piers must be assessed to ensure desirable safety of bridges against scour. In the present study, a procedure for the reliability assessment of bridge piers, installed in main and flood channels, against scour has been presented. To study the influence of various random variables on piers' reliability sensitivity analysis has been carried out. To incorporate the reliability in the evaluation of safety factor, a simplified relationship between safety factor and reliability index has been proposed. Effects of clear water (flood channel) and live bed scour (main channel) are highlighted on pier reliability. In addition to these, an attempt has also been made to explain the failure of Black mount bridge of New Zealand based on its pier's reliability analysis. Some parametric studies have also been included to obtain the results of practical interest.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.217-220
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• 2005

The designer has difficulty due to inadequacy of provisions in the domestic design code and lack of understanding for behavior of D-region. The reinforced concrete pier coping consists of various failure mechanisms as the crushing or splitting from compression concrete, and shearing failure under the loading plate. However, predicting those failure mechanisms is very difficult. In this study, reinforced concrete pier coping is analyzed and designed by using strut-tie model. Adequacy for the application of strut-tie model is verified by comparison with the way used in current design practice. The results show that strut-tie model can be a rational and an economical design than current conventional design methods.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.355-374
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• 2006

Thin walled steel bridge-piers/columns are vulnerable to damage, when subjected to earthquake excitations. Local buckling, global buckling or interaction between local and global buckling usually is the cause of this damage, which results in significant strength reduction of the member. In this study new innovative design concepts, "thin-walled corrugated steel columns" and "thin-walled cellular steel columns" are presented, which allow the column to undergo large plastic deformations without significant strength reduction; hence dissipate energy under cyclic loading. It is shown that, compared with the conventional designs, circular and stiffened box sections, these new innovative concepts might results in cost-effective designs, with improved buckling and ductility properties. Using a finite element model, that takes the non-linear material properties into consideration, it is shown that the corrugations will act like longitudinal stiffeners that are supporting each other, thus improving the buckling behavior and allowing for reduction of the overall wall thickness of the column.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.18-25
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• 2021

In many developed countries, such as South Korea, efficiently maintaining the aging infrastructures is an important issue. Currently, inspectors visually inspect the infrastructure for maintenance needs, but this method is inefficient due to its high costs, long logistic times, and hazards to the inspectors. Thus, in this paper, a novel crack inspection approach for concrete bridges is proposed using integrated image processing techniques. The proposed approach consists of four steps: (1) training a deep learning model to automatically detect cracks on concrete bridges, (2) acquiring in-situ images using a drone, (3) generating orthomosaic images based on 3D modeling, and (4) detecting cracks on the orthmosaic image using the trained deep learning model. Cascade Mask R-CNN, a state-of-the-art instance segmentation deep learning model, was trained with 3235 crack images that included 2415 hard negative images. We selected the Tancheon overpass, located in Seoul, South Korea, as a testbed for the proposed approach, and we captured images of pier 34-37 and slab 34-36 using a commercial drone. Agisoft Metashape was utilized as a 3D model generation program to generate an orthomosaic of the captured images. We applied the proposed approach to four orthomosaic images that displayed the front, back, left, and right sides of pier 37. Using pixel-level precision referencing visual inspection of the captured images, we evaluated the trained Cascade Mask R-CNN's crack detection performance. At the coping of the front side of pier 37, the model obtained its best precision: 94.34%. It achieved an average precision of 72.93% for the orthomosaics of the four sides of the pier. The test results show that this proposed approach for crack detection can be a suitable alternative to the conventional visual inspection method.