• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.319-342
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• 2008

Identification of the nonlinear hysteretic behavior of a reinforced concrete (RC) bridge pier subjected to earthquake loads is carried out based on acceleration measurements of the earthquake motion and bridge responses. The modified Takeda model is used to describe the hysteretic behavior of the RC pier with a small number of parameters, in which the nonlinear behavior is described in logical forms rather than analytical expressions. Hence, the modified extended Kalman filter is employed to construct the state transition matrix using a finite difference scheme. The sequential modified extended Kalman filter algorithm is proposed to identify the unknown parameters and the state vector separately in two steps, so that the size of the problem for each identification procedure may be reduced and possible numerical problems may be avoided. Mode superposition with a modal sorting technique is also proposed to reduce the size of the identification problem for the nonlinear dynamic system with multi-degrees of freedom. Example analysis is carried out for a continuous bridge with a RC pier subjected to earthquake loads in the longitudinal and transverse directions.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2001.03a
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• pp.245-248
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• 2001

During the core drilling for the design of a railway bridge crossing over the inferred fault system along the river, fracture zone, extends vertically more than the bottom of borehole, filled with fault gouge was found. The safety of bridge could be threatened by the excessive subsidence or the reduced bearing capacity of bedrock, if a fault would be developed under or around the pier foundation. Thus, a close examination of the fault was required to rearrange pier locations away from the fault or to select a reinforcement method if necessary. Geophysical methods, seismic reflection method and electrical resistivity survey over the water covered area, were applied to delineate the weak zone associated with the fault system. The results of geophysical survey clearly showed a number of faults extending vertically more than 50m. Reinforcement was not desirable because of the high cost and the water contamination, etc. The pier locations were thus rearranged based on the results of geophysical surveys to avoid the undesirable situations, and additional core drillings on the rearranged pier locations were carried out. The bedrock conditions at the additional drilling sites turned out to be acceptable for the construction of piers.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.287-301
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• 2020

Fragility as one of the most effective methods to evaluate seismic performance, which is greatly affected by damage index. Taking a multi span continuous rigid frame offshore bridge as an example. Based on fragility and reliability theory, considering coupling effect of time-varying durability damage of materials and time-varying attenuation effect of damage index to analyze seismic performance of offshore bridges. Results show that IDA curve considering time-varying damage index is obviously below that without considering; area enclosed by IDA of 1# pier and X-axis under No.1 earthquake considering this effect is 96% of that without considering. Area enclosed by damage index of 1# pier and X-axis under serious damage with considering time-varying damage index is 90% of that without considering in service period. Time-varying damage index has a greater impact on short pier when ground motion intensity is small, while it has a great impact on high pier when the intensity is large. The area enclosed by fragility of bridge system and X-axis under complete destruction considering time-varying damage index is 165% of that without considering when reach designed service life. Therefore, time-varying attenuation effect of damage index has a great impact on seismic performance of bridge in service period.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1999.10a
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• pp.291-300
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• 1999

An idealized analytical model is proposed to estimate the effects of restrainer upon global response behaviors of a bridge system under seismic excitations. Pounding actions between adjacent vibration units and friction at movable supports are introduced in addition to other phenomena such as nonlinear behaviors of pier, motions of the foundation and abutment to achieve the better prediction of the bridge motion. The applied restrainer is assumed to be a dead-band system, which has the force clearance and the linear-elastic force. Using the proposed model, the dynamic characteristics of a bridge system retrofitted by restrainers is examined, and the effects of stiffness and clearance length of restrainer is also investigated. The main effect of the application of restrainers is found to reduce the relative displacements and the trend becomes greater with the shorter clearance length except between pier units. It is found that the relative displacements between abutment and adjacent pier units are decreased as the stiffness of restrainer increases, but almost independent upon the stiffness increments of restrainer. However, the relative displacements between pier units tend to be increased due to the applications of the restrainers.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.1193-1203
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• 2016

This paper focuses on the analytical behavior of modular circular concrete-filled tubular (CFT) column with enhanced bracing details. To design a full-scale bridge pier of multiple circular concrete-filled tubes, numerical analysis was used to evaluate structural performance according to load directivity. In previous research (Ma et al. 2012, Shim et al. 2014), low cycle fatigue failure at bracing joints was observed, so enhanced bracing details to prevent premature failure are proposed in this analysis. The main purpose of this research is to investigate seismic performance for the diagonal direction load without premature failure at the joints when the structure reaches the ultimate load. The ABAQUS finite-element software is used to evaluate experimental performance. A quasi-static loading condition on a modular bridge pier is introduced to investigate structural performance. The results obtained from the analysis are evaluated by comparing with load-displacement responses from experiments. The concrete-filled tubes with enhanced bracing details showed higher energy dissipation capacity and proper performance without connection failure for a diagonal load.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.621-633
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• 2000

Dynamic responses of a bridge system with several simple spans under longitudinal seismic excitations are examined. The bridge system is modeled as the multiple oscillators and each oscillator consists of four degrees-of-freedom system to implement the poundings between the adjacent oscillators and the friction at movable supports. Pounding effects are considered by introducing the impact elements and a bi-linear model is adopted for the friction force. From the parametric studies, the pounding is found to induce complicated seismic responses and to restrain significantly the relative displacements between the adjacent units. The smaller gap size also restricts more strictly the relative displacement. It is found that the relative displacements between the abutment and adjacent pier unit became much larger than the responses between the inner pier units. Consequently, the unseating failure could take a place between the abutment and nearby pier units. It is also found that the relative displacements of an abutment unit to the adjacent pier unit are governed by the pounding at the opposite side abutment.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.319-344
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• 2020

Inverse analysis of non-linear reinforced concrete bridge pier using recursive Gaussian filtering for in-situ condition assessment is the main theme of this work. For this purpose, minimum variance unbiased estimation using unscented sigma points is adopted here. The uniqueness of this inverse analysis lies in its approach for strain based updating of engineering demand parameters, where appropriate bound and constrained conditions are introduced to ensure numerical stability and convergence. In this analysis, seismic input is also identified, which is an added advantage for the structures having no dedicated sensors for earthquake measurement. First, the proposed strategy is tested with a simulated example whose hysteretic properties are obtained from the slow-cyclic test of a frame to investigate its efficiency and accuracy. Finally, the experimental test data of a full-scale bridge pier is used to study its in-situ condition in terms of Park & Ang damage index. Overall the study shows the ability of the augmented minimum variance unbiased estimation based recursive time-marching algorithm for non-linear system identification with the aim to estimate the engineering damage parameters that are the fundamental information necessary for any future decision making for retrofitting/rehabilitation.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.7
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• pp.4936-4941
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• 2015

This study(I) has analyzed hydraulic characteristics with pier shapes by the bridge construction. The pier shapes are classified into total six types such as square, rhombus, octagon, oval, round, and no-piers. One-dimensional model(HEC-RAS) and two-dimensional model (RMA-2) were employed to analyze hydraulic characteristics around bridge piers. Square and rhombus shapes of piers showed velocity vectors in the upstream direction, which has a significant impact on the river bed changes by erosion and sediment transport around the piers. The flow characteristics of the oval type pier was most similar to that of no-pier situation almost without disrupting the river flow. This analysis can help to select pier types in the new bridge construction for the future.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.49-59
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• 1999

In order to understand the present situation of bridge scouring and to provide the fundamental information for bridge design, in-situ measured data is analyzed for bridge scours at small and medium streams in the heartland of Korea. The physical parameters affecting the bridge scouring such as flow depth, velocity, pier length and width, scouring depth, and the angle between flow and pier are extensively surveyed and measured. According to the locality and the pier type data are classified to analyze. With these data, some important factors for the scour depth such as flow depth, angle and Froude number are investigated and applied to existing formulas proposed by many researchers. In addition, the computational results are compared with the measured and some of the applicable formulas in this region are recommended.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2009.03a
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• pp.38-47
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• 2009

Scour means the erosion of bed material by flow change when a bridge is constructed in a stream. Scour is one of the critical factors of a bridge failure. There are several methods for the monitoring of scour near bridge foundations; Sounding rods, Magnetic sliding collar System, Sonar system, underwater camera system and so on. In general, Sonar system is preferred due to its convenience and good accuracy. In this study, the new scour monitoring system was developed using profiling sonar sensor. The new system can measure a line profile of a seabed and has small size due to the effectively designed data logger. The performance of the new scour monitoring system was evaluated at a bridge pier in tidal environment. The measured local scour depths were discussed with the result of the empirical formulas; CSU, Froehlich, Laursen and Neill.