Study on Seismic Strengthening Demand of Damage Concrete Bridge Piers

Initial damage often exists in the concrete piers of bridges in service. In this paper numerical analysis was used to study the seismic strengthening behavior of concrete bridge piers with different bending damage degrees, including seismic forces, pier top displacements, steel bar strain and energy dissipation, in order to obtain the strengthening demand to repair the damage piers. The results showing that: initial bending damage reduced the seismic force, increased the pier top displacements and the steel bar strain. After strengthening the pier top displacements and steel bar strain at the pier bottom decreased, energy dissipation increased, and the anti-seismic properties of damage piers effectively recovered, but the increase of the seismic force might make new plastic-hinges out the strengthened area. At last according to the mechanics properties the strengthening demand under different bending damage degrees was given.