• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.463-484
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• 2014

Solid piers with a rounded rectangular cross-section are widely used in railway bridges for high-speed trains in China. Compared to highway bridge piers, these railway bridge piers have a larger crosssection and less steel reinforcement. Existing material models cannot accurately predict the seismic behavior of this kind of railway bridge piers. This is because only a few parameters, such as axial load, longitudinal and transverse reinforcement, are taken into account. To enable a better understanding of the seismic behavior of this type of bridge pier, a simultaneous influence of the various parameters, i.e. ratio of height to thickness, axial load to concrete compressive strength ratio and longitudinal to transverse reinforcements, on the failure characteristics, hysteresis, skeleton curves, and displacement ductility were investigated. In total, nine model piers were tested under cyclic loading. The hysteretic response obtained from the experiments is compared with that obtained from numerical studies using existing material models. The experimental data shows that the hysteresis curves have significantly pinched characteristics that are associated with small longitudinal reinforcement ratios. The displacement ductility reduces with an increase in ratio of axial load to concrete compressive strength and longitudinal reinforcement ratio. The experimental results are largely in agreement with the numerical results obtained using Chang-Mander concrete model.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2008.04a
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• pp.73-76
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• 2008

The damage of earthquakes have to achieve by probabilistic evaluation because of uncertainty of earthquake. Fragility analysis is a useful tool for predicting the probability of damage induced by the probable earthquake. This paper presents the probability of damage as a function of peak ground acceleration and estimates the probability of five damage levels for the pier of prestressed concrete (PSC) bridge subjected to given ground acceleration. At each 100 artificial earthquake motions were generated in terms of soil conditions, and nonlinear time domain analyses were performed for the damage states of the pier of PSC bridge structures. These damage states are described by displacement ductility result from seismic performance based on existing research results. Using the damage states and ground motion parameters, five fragility curves for the pier of PSC bridges with five types of dominant frequencies were constructed assuming a log-nomal distribution. It was found that there was a significant effect on the fragility curves due to the dominant frequencies.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.3 no.3_4
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• pp.365-381
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• 2012

Recent earthquakes have damaged some bridges located on the Pacific Coast of Mexico; these bridges have been retrofitted or rebuilt. Based on the fact that the Pacific Coast is a highly active seismic zone where most of the strong earthquakes in the country occur, one fertile and important area of research is the study of the vulnerability of both new and existent bridges located in this area that can be subjected to strong earthquakes. This work is focused on estimating the contribution of some parameters identified to have major influence on the seismic vulnerability of reinforced concrete bridges. Ten models of typical reinforced concrete (RC) bridges, and two existing bridges located close to the Pacific Coast of Mexico are considered. The group of structures selected for the study is based on two span bridges, two pier heights and two substructure types. The bridges were designed according to recent codes in Mexico. For the vulnerability study, the capacity of the structure was evaluated based on the FEMA recommendations. On the other hand, the demand was evaluated using a group of more than one hundred accelerograms recorded close to the subduction zone of Mexico. The results show that the two existent bridges analyzed show similar trends of behavior of the group of bridge models studied. In spite of the contribution that traditional variables (height and substructure type) had to the bridge seismic response, the bridge length was also found to be one of the parameters that most contributed to the seismic vulnerability of these RC medium-length bridges.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.21-32
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• 2004

A Seismic analysis procedure of bi-directional brideg motions is developed by using mechanical bridge model. A three-dimensional mechanical model can consider major phenomena under bi-directional seismic excitations, such as nonlinear pier motion under biaxial bending, pounding and bearing damage due to the rotaion of the superstructure, etc. The analyses utilizing the uni-directional and the bi-directional bridge model for the 3-span simply supported bridge are then performed. The seismic responses in two cases are examined and compared by investigating the relative displacements of each superstructure to both ground and adjacent superstructures and the restoring forces of RC pier. The analysis using either the uni-directional model or bi-directional model is acceptable for estimating the displacement responses of a bridge, but the bi-directional analysis is found to give more conservative results for resisting forces of RC piers. To make general conclusions, therefore, the analysis using the bi-directional bridge model should be performed in evaluating the seismic safety of bridges.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.83-95
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• 2001

Scale model tests were performed to investigate the seismic behavior and capacity of reinforced concrete piers that were not detailed for seismic load. The prototype pier is of solid circular section. Additional lateral reinforcing bars were not provided that might be required for the confinement. Two kinds of reinforcement details are considered for the vertical longitudinal reinforcing bars: lap spliced and continuous. In the case of lap spliced model all the longitudinal bars were lap spliced at the same height in the bottom plastic hinge zone. Three specimens were constructed and subjected to quasi-static cyclic lateral loading while the vertical load held constant. Non-ductile failure modes were observed in the test of lap spliced models but limited ductile behavior was observed in the test of a continuous longitudinal reinforcement model.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.367-389
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• 2008

Shape Memory Alloys (SMAs) are unique materials with a paramount potential for various applications in bridges. The novelty of this material lies in its ability to undergo large deformations and return to its undeformed shape through stress removal (superelasticity) or heating (shape memory effect). In particular, Ni-Ti alloys have distinct thermomechanical properties including superelasticity, shape memory effect, and hysteretic damping. SMA along with sensing devices can be effectively used to construct smart Reinforced Concrete (RC) bridges that can detect and repair damage, and adapt to changes in the loading conditions. SMA can also be used to retrofit existing deficient bridges. This includes the use of external post-tensioning, dampers, isolators and/or restrainers. This paper critically examines the fundamental characteristics of SMA and available sensing devices emphasizing the factors that control their properties. Existing SMA models are discussed and the application of one of the models to analyze a bridge pier is presented. SMA applications in the construction of smart bridge structures are discussed. Future trends and methods to achieve smart bridges are also proposed.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.435-445
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• 2019

The collapses of curved bridges are mainly caused by the damaged columns, subjected to the combined loadings of axial load, shear force, flexural moment and torsional moment, under earthquakes. However, these combined loadings have not been fully investigated. This paper firstly investigated the mechanical characteristics of the bending-torsion coupling effects, based on the seismic response spectrum analysis of 24 curved bridge models. And then 9 reinforced concrete (RC) and circular column specimens were tested, by changing the bending-tortion ratio (M/T), axial compression ratio, longitudinal reinforcement ratio and spiral reinforcement ratio, respectively. The results show that the bending-torsion coupling effects of piers are more significant, along with the decrease of girder curvature and the increase of pier height. The M/T ratio ranges from 6 to 15 for common cases, and influences the crack distribution, plastic zone and hysteretic curve of piers. And these seismic characteristics are also influenced by the compression ratio, longitudinal reinforcement ratio and spiral reinforcement ratios of piers.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.17 no.1 s.85
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• pp.27-34
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to investigate the structural behavior of RC Piers using high strength concrete and high strength rebars. The high strength concrete offers many advantages such as enhanced mechanical performance and durability, in addition to member size reduction. The high strength rebars are used here to reduce the amount of rebars, which facilitates the placement of concrete and labor works. Five RC piers were tested under a constant axial load and a cyclically reversed horizontal load. The seismic design of piers were implemented, according to the current Korean Bridge Design Code. The test variables include concrete compressive strength, steel strength, and steel ratio. The test results indicate that RC piers using the high strength concrete and high strength rebars exhibit ductile behavior and appropriate seismic performance, in compliance with the design code. The present study allows more realistic application of high strength rebars and concrete to RC piers, which will provide enhanced durability as well as more economy.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2000.10a
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• pp.381-388
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• 2000

The steel piers and the concrete-filled steel piers, in spite of reasonable strength, high ductility, small section, and fast construction, have not been considered as the alternatives to the RC piers even in the highly populated urban area where aseismic safety, limited space and fast construction are indispensably required. In this paper, a steel pier and 4 box type concrete-filled steel piers were tested with the quasi-static cyclic loading to estimate the ductility and the strength. Additional devices such as base rib, turn-buckle, and anchor bolted added at the to increase the ductility with minimum additional cost. The result showed that the concrete filled-in steel piers had higher energy absorbtion and strength than steel piers had, but also showed that slight overlooking in the design and fabrication could lead to the abrupt fracture just after small local buckling at the bottom.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2000.10a
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• pp.467-472
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• 2000

It is known that chloride ion in concrete destroys the passive film of reinforcement inside concrete and accelerates corrosion which is the most influencing factor to durability of concrete structures. In this thesis, a chloride ion diffusion model for blast furnace slag(BFS) concrete, which has better resistance to both damage due to salt and chloride ion penetration than ordinary portland cement concrete, is proposed by modifying existing model of normal concrete. Proposed model is verified by comparing diffusion analysis results with both results by indoor chloride penetration test for specimens and field test results for actual RC bridge pier. Also, the optimum resistance condition to chloride penetration is obtained according to degrees of fineness and replacement ratios of BFS concrete. As a result, resistance to chloride ion penetration for BFS concrete is more affected by replacement ratio than degree of fineness.