Evaluation of seismic performance of a circular reinforced concrete bridge column designed in accordance with the current design code based on e-defense excitation

This paper presents a 3D shake table experiment on a 7.5 m tall 2 m diameter circular reinforced concrete column which was designed in accordance with 2002 Japan Road Association design code. Failure mechanism was clarified based on a series of excitations and fiber element analyses. It was found that the column behaved satisfactorily under a near-field ground motion recorded during the 1995 Kobe, Japan earthquake. The scale effect on the ultimate displacement due to pull-out of crashed core concrete from steel cage and the lateral confinement by hoops are presented.