Inelastic behavior and ductility capacity of reinforced concrete bridge piers under earthquake. I: Numerical validation

Abstract

Analytical models for the inelastic behavior and ductility capacity of reinforced concrete bridge piers under earthquake are presented in Part I of this two-part paper. Part II presents experimental verification and results from numerical simulations. A general purpose finite element analysis program implementing the reinforced concrete plane stress element and the interface element is developed. Nonlinear analysis results for various reinforced concrete bridge piers subjected to given seismic loading show reasonable agreement with the recorded experimental data, and this validates that the models may be appropriately used as constitutive models for inelastic analyses of reinforced concrete bridge piers under earthquake. The displacement ductility capacity is computed for the members, and a seismic design method for reinforced concrete bridge piers considering the response modification factor is discussed.