• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.82 no.5
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• pp.651-665
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• 2022

While the lateral confinement provided by an FRP jacket to a concrete column is passive in nature, confinement is activated when the concrete expands due to additional compression stresses or significant shear deformations. This characteristic of FRP jacketing theoretically leads to similar initial stiffness properties of FRP retrofitted buildings as the buildings without retrofit. In the current study, to validate this theoretical assumption, the initial stiffness characteristics, and thus, the potential seismic demands were investigated through forced vibration tests on two identical full-scale substandard reinforced concrete buildings with or without FRP retrofit. Power spectral density functions obtained using the acceleration response data captured through forced vibration tests were used to estimate the modal characteristics of these buildings. The test results clearly showed that the natural frequencies and the mode shapes of the buildings are quite similar. Since the seismic demand is controlled by the fundamental vibration modes, it is confirmed using vibration-based full-scale tests that the seismic demands of RC buildings remain unchanged after CFRP jacketing of columns. Furthermore, the damping characteristics were also found similar for both structures.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.345-367
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• 2015

Past earthquakes have signaled the increased collapse vulnerability of mainshock-damaged bridge piers and urgent need of repair interventions prior to subsequent cascading hazard events, such as aftershocks, triggered by the mainshock (MS). The overarching goal of this study is to quantify the collapse vulnerability of mainshock-damaged substandard RC bridge piers rehabilitated with different repair jackets (FRP, conventional thick steel and hybrid jacket) under aftershock (AS) attacks of various intensities. The efficacy of repair jackets on post-MS resilience of repaired bridges is quantified for a prototype two-span single-column bridge bent with lap-splice deficiency at column-footing interface. Extensive number of incremental dynamic time history analyses on numerical finite element bridge models with deteriorating properties under back-to-back MS-AS sequences were utilized to evaluate the efficacy of different repair jackets on the post-repair behavior of RC bridges subjected to AS attacks. Results indicate the dramatic impact of repair jacket application on post-MS resilience of damaged bridge piers-up to 45.5 % increase of structural collapse capacity-subjected to aftershocks of multiple intensities. Besides, the efficacy of repair jackets is found to be proportionate to the intensity of AS attacks. Moreover, the steel jacket exhibited to be the most vulnerable repair intervention compared to CFRP, irrespective of the seismic sequence (severe MS-severe or moderate AS) or earthquake type (near-fault or far-fault).