• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.285-295
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• 2018

In this paper, the bearing capacity of a non-eccentric and eccentric tubular, concrete-filled, steel bridge pier was studied through the finite element method. Firstly, to verify the validity of the numerical analysis, the finite element analysis of four steel tube columns with concrete in-fill was carried out under eccentric loading and horizontal cyclic loading. The analytical results were compared with experimental data. Secondly, the effects of the eccentricity of the vertical loading on the seismic performance of these eccentrically loaded steel tubular bridge piers were considered. According to the simulated results, with increasing eccentricity ratio, the bearing capacity on the eccentric side of a steel tubular bridge pier (with concrete in-fill) is greatly reduced, while the capacity on the opposite side is improved. Moreover, an empirical formula was proposed to describe the bearing capacity of such bridge piers under non-eccentric and eccentric load. This will provide theoretical evidence for the seismic design of the eccentrically loaded steel tubular bridge piers with concrete in-fill.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.343-355
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• 2013

Shear failure and core concrete crushing at plastic hinge region are the two main failure modes of bridge piers, which can make repair impossible and cause the collapse of bridge. To avoid the two types of failure of pier, a composite pier was proposed, which was formed by embedding high strength concrete filled steel tubular (CFT) column in reinforced concrete (RC) pier. Through cyclic loading tests, the seismic performances of the composite pier were studied. The experimental results show that the CFT column embedded in composite pier can increase the flexural strength, displacement ductility and energy dissipation capacity, and decrease the residual displacement after undergoing large deformation. The analytical analysis is performed to simulate the hysteretic behavior of the composite pier subjected to cyclic loading, and the numerical results agree well with the experimental results. Using the analytical model and time-history analysis method, seismic responses of a continuous girder bridge using composite piers is investigated, and the results show that the bridge using composite piers can resist much stronger earthquake than the bridge using RC piers.

• 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.