• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.725-734
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• 2012

A new modular pier system using concrete filled circular steel tubes was suggested to realize modular bridge substructures for accelerated bridge construction. Structural details and connection details were proposed by connection multiple concrete filled tubes (CFT) for standardized products of fabrication, delivery and erection. Static tests were performed for the modular pier with suggested details under lateral load conditions for weak and strong axes. Due to the eccentricity by the bracing system, the modular pier showed 5.23 times higher flexural stiffness and 6 times greater flexural strength from the test. It is proper for the rational design to evaluate stress and deformation by frame modeling of the modular CFT pier. Structural capacity of the pier can be obtained by adjusting the spacing of the CFT columns. Design recommendations were derived from the test.

• International Journal of Railway
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2010

The steel plate-girder bridges with concrete gravity piers have possibilities of overturning by lateral inertial force which can be reproduced by sudden earthquake attack. This paper explores an overturning mechanism of existing concrete gravity pier onto the sandy soil in the event of lateral push-over load by in-situ experimental observation. The in-situ push-over experiment for pier with earth anchors between spread footing and rock beds exhibits a reasonable enhancement of ductility against overturning. In unanchored system, a flexural crack at cold joint of concrete pier is not developed because of the over-turning of the pier. This leads a global instability (rotation) of pier-footing system with relatively low stresses in pier itself. While a lateral load is persistently increased in anchored system, the successive flexural cracking failure at cold joint is observed even after the local shear failure of soil due to redistribution of stress equilibrium between soil and pier structure as long as a tensile action of anchor cable is active.

• 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.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.343-355
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• 2013

Shear failure and core concrete crushing at plastic hinge region are the two main failure modes of bridge piers, which can make repair impossible and cause the collapse of bridge. To avoid the two types of failure of pier, a composite pier was proposed, which was formed by embedding high strength concrete filled steel tubular (CFT) column in reinforced concrete (RC) pier. Through cyclic loading tests, the seismic performances of the composite pier were studied. The experimental results show that the CFT column embedded in composite pier can increase the flexural strength, displacement ductility and energy dissipation capacity, and decrease the residual displacement after undergoing large deformation. The analytical analysis is performed to simulate the hysteretic behavior of the composite pier subjected to cyclic loading, and the numerical results agree well with the experimental results. Using the analytical model and time-history analysis method, seismic responses of a continuous girder bridge using composite piers is investigated, and the results show that the bridge using composite piers can resist much stronger earthquake than the bridge using RC piers.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.255-265
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• 2022

In order to determine fragility curves, the limit state of piers for each damage level is suggested in this paper based on the previous test results in Korea, including our test results. In previous studies, the quantitative measures for damage levels of piers have been represented by curvature ductility, lateral drift ratio, or displacement ductility. These measures are transformed to lateral drift ratios of piers for consistency, and the transformed values are compared and verified with our push-over test results for flexural RC piers with a circular cross-section. The test specimens are categorized concerning the number of lap-splices in the plastic hinge region and whether seismic design codes are satisfied or not. Based on the collected test results in Korea, including ours, the lateral drift ratio for each pier damage level is suggested.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.275-283
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• 2018

Seismic strengthening is essential for existing bridge piers which are deficient to resist the earthquake. The concrete and CFRP jackets with a bottom-anchoring method are used to strengthen railway bridge piers with low reinforcement ratio. Quasi-static tests of scaled down model piers are performed to evaluate the seismic performance of the original and strengthened bridge pier. The fracture characteristics indicate that the vulnerable position of the railway bridge pier with low reinforcement ratio during earthquake is the pier-footing region and shows flexural failure mode. The force-displacement relationships show that the two strengthening techniques using CFRP and concrete jackets can both provide a significant improvement in load-carrying capacity for railway bridge piers with low reinforcement ratio. It is clear that the bottom-anchoring method by using planted steel bars can guarantee the CFRP and concrete jackets to work jointly with original concrete piers Furthermore, it can be found that the use of CFRP jacket offers advantages over concrete jacket in improving the energy dissipation capacity under lateral cyclic loading. Therefore, the seismic strengthening techniques by the use of CFRP and concrete jackets provide alternative choices for the large numbers of existing railway bridge piers with low reinforcement ratio in China.

• 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.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.849-854
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• 2002

From the analysis results of some as-built drawings in national roadway bridges in Korea, many bridge piers are expected to show complex shear-flexural behaviour under earthquakes. But the previous research works about the seismic evaluation of bridges considered flexural behaviour RC piers only. In addition, the past bridge design specifications in Korea didn't include limitation on the amount of longitudinal lap splices in the plastic hinge zone of piers. Thus a large majority of non-seismically designed bridge piers in Korea may have lap splices in plastic hinge zone. In this study, prototype pier was selected among existent bridge piers whose failure mode is expected to be complex shear-flexural mode. And then, full scale and 1/2 reduced scale model RC piers with various longitudinal lap splice details were constructed. From the quasi static test results on these model RC piers, the effect of longitudinal lap splices on the seismic performance of bridges piers was analyzed. And the seismic capacity of the non-seismically designed shear-flexural RC piers was evaluated.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.41-53
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• 2012

The objective of this study is to evaluate the seismic capacity of RC piers with small aspect ratios. Test specimens were selected from the prototype piers among existing national roadway bridges which are expected to fail in shear and/or complex shear-flexural mode. Two groups of full scale RC pier models were constructed with aspect ratios of 2.25 and 2.67. Quasi-static tests have been implemented to investigate the failure behavior of the RC piers in terms of the lap-spliced longitudinal reinforcing steel and the aspect ratio. It is confirmed that regarding its shear-flexural behavior, the pier is very sensitive to the aspect ratio or details. In the case of a test pier with highly lap-spliced longitudinal bars, the bond failure of lap-splice steels was the dominant cause of failure before the occurrence of flexure or shear-flexural failure, despite a slight change in the aspect ratio. Finally, based on the test results and analysis, this paper proposes formulas for the yielding and ultimate displacements of circular reinforced concrete bridge piers without seismic details. These formulas will be useful for the investigation and upgrade of the seismic capacity of bridge piers without seismic details.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.561-568
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• 2014

A modular fish-bone girder pier consists of one main girder system named as "Spine Girder". Therefore, this pier can be most affected by torsion as well as flexural bending. The design considerations of the fish-bone girder pier are proposed to assure the reasonable design in this study. In order to investigate the behavior characteristics, structural analysis F.E model is developed, and the verification of the developed model is performed by comparison with experimental data. From the investigation of the structural behavior, the vertical stiffener is required at the bottom of bone-beams to prevent the excessive local stress. Also, it is found that the normal stress of the flange and the shear stress of the web and flange are dominantly affected by the warping torsion and pure torsion, respectively.