• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.41-54
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• 1999

Because of relatively heavy dead weight of concrete itself and unavoidable heat of massive concrete in bridge piers, circular hollow columns are widely used in Korean highway bridges. Since the occurrence of 1995 Kobe earthquake, there have been much concerns about seismic design for various infrastructures, inclusive of bridge structures. It is, however, understood that there are not much research works for nonlinear behavior of circular hollow columns subjected to eqrthquake motions. The objective of this experimental research is to investigate nonlinear behavior of circular hollow reinforced concrete bridge piers under the quasi-static cyclic load, and then to enhance their ductility by strengthening the plastic hinge region with glassfiber sheets. Particularly for this test, constant 10 cyclic loads have been repeatedly actuated to investigate the magnitude of strength degradation for the displacement ductility factor. Important test parameters are seismic design, confinement steel ratio, axial force and load pattern. It is observed from quasi-static tests for 7 bridge piers that the seismically designed columns and the retrofitted columns show better performance than the nonseismically designed colums, i.e. about 20% higher for energy dissipation capacity and about 70% higher for curvatures.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.9 no.2 s.42
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• pp.29-36
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to investigate the inelastic behavior of reinforced concrete bridge columns with unbonding of main reinforcements at plastic hinge region. A computer program, named RCAHEST (Reinforced Concrete Analysis in Higher Evaluation System Technology), for the analysis of reinforced concrete structures was used. Material nonlinearity is taken into account by comprising tensile, compressive and shear models of cracked concrete and a model of reinforcing steel. The smeared crack approach is incorporated. The effect of unbonding of main reinforcements at plastic hinge region has been also taken into account to model the concrete and reinforcing steel. The proposed numerical method for the inelastic behavior of reinforced concrete bridge columns with unbonding of main reinforcements at plastic hinge region is verified by comparison with reliable experimental results.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.11-21
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• 2002

The evaluation of displacement ductility is performed by direct method through tracking the inelastic hysteretic behavior of RC bridge columns subject to cyclic loading using a flexibility-based fiber element mode. To reasonably track the inelastic behavior until the RC bridge column reaches its ultimate state, the average stress-average strain relations and joint elements, which agree well with experiments, are modified and applied considering the tension stiffening behavior and discontinuous displacement between the column and its base. In addition the evaluation of displacement ductility is performed by a direct method easily applicable to numerical analysis. Locations for the integration points, values for the post-crushing concrete strength and low-cycle fatigue failure of longitudinal reinforcement that affect the calculation of yielding and ultimate displacements are proposed for the application to flexibility-based fiber element model. Since less than 10% of error occurs during the displacement ductility analysis, the yielding and ultimate displacements evaluated by the applied analysis method and model appear to be valid.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.137-158
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• 2009

This paper investigates the behavior of reinforced concrete (RC) circular columns under combined loading including torsion. The main variables considered in this study are the ratio of torsional moment to bending moment (T/M) and the level of detailing for moderate and high seismicity (low and high transverse reinforcement/spiral ratio). This paper presents the results of tests on seven columns subjected to cyclic bending and shear, cyclic torsion, and various levels of combined cyclic bending, shear, and torsion. Columns under combined loading were tested at T/M ratios of 0.2 and 0.4. These columns were reinforced with two spiral reinforcement ratios of 0.73% and 1.32%. Similarly, the columns subjected to pure torsion were tested with two spiral reinforcement ratios of 0.73% and 1.32%. This study examined the significance of proper detailing, and spiral reinforcement ratio and its effect on the torsional resistance under combined loading. The test results demonstrate that both the flexural and torsional capacities are decreased due to the effect of combined loading. Furthermore, they show a significant change in the failure mode and deformation characteristics depending on the spiral reinforcement ratio. The increase in spiral reinforcement ratio also led to significant improvement in strength and ductility.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2017

Three small scale hollow circular reinforced concrete columns with aspect ratio 4.5 were tested under cyclic lateral load with constant axial load. Diameter of section is 400 mm, hollow diameter is 200 mm. The selected test variable is transverse steel ratio. Volumetric ratios of spirals of all the columns are 0.302~0.604% in the plastic hinge region. It corresponds to 45.9~91.8% of the minimum requirement of confining steel by Korean Bridge Design Specifications, which represent existing columns not designed by the current seismic design specifications or designed by seismic concept. The longitudinal steel ratio is 2.017%. The axial load ratio is 7%. This paper describes mainly crack behavior, load-displacement hysteresis loop, seismic performance such as equivalent damping ratio, residual displacement and effective stiffness and flexural over-strength of circular reinforced concrete bridge columns with respect to test variable. The regulation of flexural over-strength is adopted by Korea Bridge Design Specifications (Limited state design, 2012). The test results are compared with nominal strength, result of nonlinear moment-curvature analysis and the design specifications such as AASHTO LRFD and Korea Bridge Design Specifications(Limited state design).

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.411-419
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• 1999

A nonlinear model for time-step analysis of bridges subjected to two orthogonal horizontal components of earthquake motions was developed. The focus of the study was on elastomeric isolators with or without lead cores. The hysteretic behavior of the isolators, the columns, abutments, and shear keys was taken into account. The nonlinear analysis showed that, contrary to linear theory prediction, the use of isolators does not necessarily increase the displacement of the superstructure. Furthermore, it was shown that properly designed isolators can reduce the ductility demand in RC bridge columns substantially.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.4 no.5
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• pp.527-555
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• 2013

This paper proposes probabilistic models for estimating the seismic demands on reinforced concrete (RC) bridges with base isolation. The models consider the shear and deformation demands on the bridge columns and the deformation demand on the isolation devices. An experimental design is used to generate a population of bridges based on the AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Specifications (AASHTO 2007) and the Caltrans' Seismic Design Criteria (Caltrans 1999). Ground motion records are used for time history analysis of each bridge to develop probabilistic models that are practical and are able to account for the uncertainties and biases in the current, common deterministic model. As application of the developed probabilistic models, a simple method is provided to determine the fragility of bridges. This work facilitates the reliability-based design for this type of bridges and contributes to the transition from limit state design to performance-based design.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.47-56
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• 2012

It is known that seismic performance of existing bridges having insufficient lateral confinements and lap-splices of longitudinal reinforcements at the base of column decreases dramatically. In this study, small-scaled model tests have been performed to confirm the seismic behaviors of RC bridge piers with various lap-splice lengths. The 8 test models have circular section with diameters of 0.65 m, 0.8 m, 1.0 m, and lap-splice lengths of B-class or C-class. The test results show that the failure modes of models are not depending on the lap-splice length itself but depend on the ratio of lap-splice length to diameter, and that the displacement ductility is also affected by this ratio.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.102-111
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• 2022

The aim of this study is to assess the seismic performance of octagonal hollow cross section reinforced concrete bridge pier, and to investigate the effect of longitudinal reinforcement ratios on the failure behavior. Four octagonal hollow section RC bridge columns of small scale model were tested under a quasi-static cyclically reversed horizontal load with constant axial load. The volumetric ratio of transverse spiral hoop of all specimens was maintained constant(0.206%), the ratios of longitudinal reinforcement were varied(2.36 ~ 4.71%). Failure behavior and seismic performance were investigated. Three specimens with the exception of lap spliced specimen showed flexure-shear failure at final stage. The test results with the exception of lap spliced specimen showed that the displacement ductility factor and accumulated energy dissipation decreased in inverse proportion to the ratio of longitudinal steel.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.949-954
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• 2003

In this paper, simplified modeling approach describing the hysteretic behavior of reinforced concrete columns is discussed. The inelastic response of a reinforced concrete column or pier subjected to cyclic deformation reversals or earthquake ground motion is evaluated by use of lumped hysteretic representation. For this purpose, the hystertic model under axial force variation is developed and implemented into a nonlinear finite element analysis program. The analytical predictions obtained with the new formulation are compared with test results and reveal accuracy and applicability in terms of strength and stiffness. In addition, comparison between results with and without axial force variation stresses the importance of the proposed approach.