• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.41-62
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• 2013

A comprehensive experimental program of cyclic tests on 1:3-scale models of bridge piers is going to be carried out at the Laboratory of Structures and Materials of the University of Basilicata. The testing models include eight RC single shaft piers with hollow circular cross section. Four piers have been realised using corroded steel rebars. In this paper, the results of preliminary numerical simulation analyses of the cyclic behaviour of the piers, carried out with Opensees using fiber-based models, are presented. Pull-out and lap-splice effects of steel rebars have been taken into account in the numerical analyses. First, the experimental specimens and the test set up are presented. Next, the results of the numerical analyses are discussed. In the numerical analyses, different configurations and levels of corrosion have been considered. The effective stiffness and equivalent damping of the piers is reported as a function of pier ductility and pier drift.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.87-98
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• 2009

It is well known that reinforcement details in the plastic hinge region of bridge piers give the most important effects on the seismic performance of bridges, from investigations of bridge failures in many earthquake events and in laboratory tests. Longitudinal reinforcement details give larger effects than lateral reinforcement details do. The lap-spliced longitudinal steel shows slip during earthquake events, which results in low ductility and inadequate seismic performance. However, before the issue of the earthquake design code, a considerable number of bridge piers were constructed with lap-spliced longitudinal steel in the plastic hinge region. Therefore, a large amount of research has been conducted on the seismic performance and retrofit of circular and rectangular shaped bridge columns with lap-spliced longitudinal steel. However, research on wall type piers is very limited. This paper investigates the seismic performance of a pier wall by a quasi-static test in the weak axis direction and proposes a retrofit method. From the test with variables being the longitudinal steel detail and the transverse steel amount, it is shown that the currently used definition of yield displacement is not adequate. Therefore a new definition of yield displacement for the ductility investigation for a pier wall is proposed. In addition, a retrofit method by steel plates and bolts is proposed to improve ductility, and test results show that slip of the longitudinal steel is prevented by up to a considerably large displacement.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.501-516
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• 2014

The rocking pier system (RPS) allows the columns to rock on beam or foundation surfaces during the attacks of a strong earthquake. Literatures have proved that seismic energy dissipated by the RPS through the column impact is limited. To enhance the energy dissipation capacity of a RPS bridge substructure, frictional hinge dampers (FHDs) were installed and evaluated by shaking table tests. The supplemental FHDs consist of two brass plates sandwiched by three steel plates. The strategy of self-centering design is to isolate the seismic energy by RPS at the columns and then dissipate the energy by FHDs at the bridge deck. Component tests of FHD were first conducted to verify the friction coefficient and dynamic characteristic of the FHDs. In total, 32 shaking table tests were conducted to investigate parameters such as wave forms of the earthquake (El Centro 1940 and Kobe 1995) and normal forces applied on the friction dampers. An analytical model was also proposed to compare with the tested damping of the bridge sub-structure with or without FHDs.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.59 no.4
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• pp.683-701
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• 2016

Safety is the prime concern for a high-speed railway bridge, especially when it is subjected to a collision. In this paper, an analysis framework for the dynamic responses of train-bridge systems under collision load is established. A multi-body dynamics model is employed to represent the moving vehicle, the modal decomposition method is adopted to describe the bridge structure, and the time history of a collision load is used as the external load on the train-bridge system. A (180+216+180) m continuous steel trussed-arch bridge is considered as an illustrative case study. With the vessel collision acting on the pier, the displacements and accelerations at the pier-top and the mid-span of the bridge are calculated when a CRH2 high-speed train running through the bridge, and the influence of bridge vibration on the running safety indices of the train, including derailment factors, offload factors and lateral wheel/rail forces, are analyzed. The results demonstrate that under the vessel collision load, the dynamic responses of the bridge are greatly enlarged, threatening the running safety of high-speed train on the bridge, which is affected by both the collision intensity and the train speed.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2010.05a
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• pp.131-132
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• 2010

Seismic design for new built bridges has been considered which is being used now. However, before the revised code for seismic design is issued, the reinforced concrete bridge piers which has been built and being used are pretty weak under the lateral seismic load. experiments of bridge piers are done under iterative lateral load, according to experimental results, the influence of Nikon-Chrome alloy steel barson performance of bridge piers is analyzed, also the shape effect of anti-seismic reinforcement on pier behavior is discussed.

• Coupled systems mechanics
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.359-379
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• 2020

Due to susceptibility of bridges in the past earthquakes, vulnerability assessment and strengthening of bridges has gained a particular significance. The objective of the present study is to employ an analytical method for the development of fragility curves, as well as to investigate the effect of strengthening on the RC box-girder bridges. Since fragility curves are used for pre-and post-earthquake planning, this paper has attempted to adopt the most reliable modeling assumptions in order to increase the reliability. Furthermore, to acknowledge the interaction of soil, abutment and pile, the effect of different strengthening methods, such as using steel jacketing and FRP layers, the effect of increase in the bridge pier diameter, and the effect of vertical component of earthquake on the vulnerability of bridges in this study, a three-span RC box-girder bridge was modeled in 9 different cases. Nonlinear dynamic analyses were carried out on the studied bridges subjected to 100 ground motion records via OpenSEES platform. Therefore, the fragility curves were plotted and compared in the four damage states. The results revealed that once the interaction of soil and abutment and the vertical component of the earthquake are accounted for in the calculations, the median fragility is reduced, implying that the bridge becomes more vulnerable. It was also confirmed that steel jackets and FRP layers are suitable methods for pier strengthening which reduces the vulnerability of the bridge.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.687-704
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• 2014

A great number of moment-resisting steel structures collapsed due to ductile crack initiation at welded beam-column connections, followed by explosive brittle fracture in the Kobe (Hyogoken-Nanbu) earthquake in 1995. A series of experimental and numerical studies on cracking behaviors of beam-column connections in steel bridge piers were carried out by the authors' team. This paper aims to study the effect of post weld treatment on cracking behaviors of the connections during a strong earthquake event. Experiments of three specimens with different weld finishes, i.e., as-welded, R-finish, and burr grinding, were conducted. The experimental results indicate that the instants of ductile crack initiation are greatly delayed for the specimens with R-finish and burr grinding finishes compared with the as-welded one. The strain concentration effect in the connection is also greatly reduced in the specimens with post weld treatment compared with the as-welded one, which was also verified in the tests.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.18 no.6 s.96
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• pp.749-757
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• 2006

Many losses of life and extensive damage of social infrastructures have occurred due to moderate and strong earthquakes all over the world. In this research various design parameters have been evaluated to develop a rational seismic design code of rectangular reinforced concrete(RC) bridge piers. It was confirmed from this study that the axial force ratio and longitudinal steel ratio were most influencing design parameters on the seismic displacement ductility from experimental results of 54 rectangular RC bridge piers, which were tested at domestic and foregin countries. However, these important parameters are not considered in the confinement steel ratio of Korea Highway Bridge Design Specification(KHBDS). The objective of this study is to propose a rational design provision for the transverse reinforcement of rectangular RC bridge piers. New confinement steel ratio is proposed by reflecting the effect of the axial force and longitudinal steel into the current code of KHBDS. furthermore, minimum transverse confinement steel ratio is also proposed to avoid a probable buckling of longitudinal reinforcing steels of RC bridge piers with a relatively low axial force. New practical code can alleviate the rebar congestion in the plastic hinge region of RC bridge pier, which contributes to construct RC bridge piers in a simple and economic way.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.319-329
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• 2020

Among the bridges used in Korea, those that are more than 30 years old account for approximately 11% of the total bridges. Therefore, developing a seismic performance-evaluation method is necessary by considering the bridge age. Three composite steel-concrete box girder bridges with port, elastic-rubber, and lead-rubber bearings were selected, and a structural analysis model was developed using the OpenSEESs program. In this study, pier aging was reflected by the reduction in the area of the longitudinal and transverse rebars. Four conditions of 5%, 10%, 25%, and 50% in the degree of pier aging were used. As input earthquakes, 40 near-fault and far-field earthquakes were used, and the maximum displacement and maximum shear-force responses of the piers were obtained and compared. The result shows that as the aging degree increases, the pier strength decreases. Therefore, the pier displacement response increases. To analyze the effects of displacement response and shear resistance, displacement ratio D_ratio and shear-force ratio F_ratio were evaluated. The older the sample bridge is, the greater is the tendency of D_ratio to increase and the smaller is the tendency of F_ratio to decrease.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 1998.10a
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• pp.113-119
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• 1998

This study is focused on evaluation of the structural behavior of skewed bridge during earthquake. The variation of natural frequencies and the lateral forces at pier shoes by the skewness and the rotational effect about vertical axis of skewed bridge due to seismic activity are analytically evaluated and identified through case studies. For this purpose, the composite steel girder highway bridges are selected as case study models. The seismic analyses by response spectrum method and time history method are performed for the selected models. It has been recognized that the frequency of longitudinal model increased as the skew angle decreased, while the lateral mode frequency showed the opposite trends. When the skew angle decreased, longitudina seismic forces of the bridge at the pier were increased but decreased in transverse direction. And it also has been found that the skewed bridges of the case study models showed the rotational behavior about vertical axis due to motion of San Fernando earthquake at Pacoima Dam.