Inadequate flexural strength and ductility or shear strength of concrete bridge columns has resulted in collapse or severe damage of a number of California bridges in recent moderate earthquakes. In general, these bridges were designed prior to the new seismic design methods which were implemented in the mid-seventies. Bridges constructed in accordance with the new design methods have performed well in recent earthquakes. However, the large number of older bridges that are in service, particularly freeway overpasses designed and constructed in the 1950s and 1970s, are now recognized to have substandard design details and to constitute a cause for major concern. This paper reports the results of a theoretical and experimental program investigating retrofit techniques for circular columns by encasing the critical regions within a steel jacket. The jacket is bonded to the column using grout. Results from six large-scale column tests show that the casing acts efficiently as confinement reinforcement, enabling a displacement ductility factor of greater than 6 to be achieved. The casing also inhibits bond failures at the laps of longitudinal reinforcement in the critical regions of the column by restraining the dilation and spalling of the cover concrete which degenerates into bond failure. Comparisons of 'as-built' and retrofitted columns are presented, and experimental strengths and ductilities are compared with analytical predictions. For the covering abstract of the Conference see IRRD Abstract no. 807839.

Reinforced concrete columns play a very important role in structural performance. As such, it is essential to apply a suitable analytical tool to estimate their structural behaviour considering all failure mechanisms such as axial, shear, and flexural failures. This book highlights the development of a fiber beam-column element accounting for shear effects and the effect of tension stiffening through reinforcement-to-concrete bond, along with the employment of suitable constitutive material laws.

Describes the dynamic testing of 4 circular reinforced concrete bridge columns. The specimens were divided into 2 pairs, with each pair subjected to a different ground motion. Within each pair, one specimen was subjected to one component of the ground motion, while the other was subjected to 2 components. Two analytical studies were carried out for a wide array of column heights, diameters, and axial load intensities. The columns were subjected to large suites of ground motions scaled to match on average the design response spectrum.

This project assessed the use of ASTM A706 Grade 80 reinforcing bars in reinforced concrete columns. Grade 80 is not currently allowed in reinforced concrete columns due to lack of information on the material characteristics and column performance. Six half-scale, circular columns were tested: three constructed with Grade 60 reinforcement and three constructed with Grade 80 reinforcement. Designs followed standard design methodologies used by State Highway Agencies (including AASHTO). Results indicate that columns constructed with Grade 80 reinforcement performed similar to columns constructed with conventional ASTM A706 Grade 60 reinforcement. Computational modeling was performed using OpenSees for all six columns. Results indicate that the columns constructed with Grade 80 reinforcement achieved similar resistance and displacement and curvature ductility values when compared with the reference columns constructed with Grade 60 reinforcement. The columns constructed with Grade 60 reinforcement showed larger hysteretic energy dissipation than the columns constructed with Grade 80 reinforcement.