Seismic Performance of Reinforced Concrete Rectangular Hollow Bridge piers

摘要

Hollow rectangular reinforced concrete piers have been widely used in tall-column and long-span bridges. Two large-scale experimental models of the hollow reinforced concrete bridge piers were built to study the seismic performance of the piers subjected to biaxial bending under constant axial load. The objective is to evaluate seismic performances of the model piers and the factors affecting the seismic performance of the model piers by comparing their failure mechanism, bearing capacity, ductility, energy dissipation capacity, etc. The results show that the hollow rectangular specimen experienced fiexural failure with plastic hinges formed at the bottom of the piers when subjected to combined axial load and biaxial bending. The bearing capacity of the specimen increases greatly and the ductility decrease insignificantly as the axial compression ratio increases from 0.1 to 0.2, while the energy dissipation capacity is increased by 121.8%, however, the absolute value of total cumulative hysteretic energy is not magnificent.