Seismic performance of reinforced concrete bridge piers

A research program was recently initiated at the University of Colorado to develop computational models that can be used for seismic risk assessments. The research focused on two types of capabilities. One is at the global level, to assess the overall performance of a bridge structure including the nonlinear effects of bridge piers. For this purpose, beam-column elements that are able to capture shear as well as axial and flexural behavior of reinforced concrete piers are being developed. The other is at the local pier level, for which 3-D concrete models are used to evaluate the behavior of individual piers under combined axial load, bending, and shear using 3-D finite element analysis. Recent progress of this study will be summarized in the paper. Existing experimental results on reinforced concrete bridge piers will be used to validate the seismic performance of bridge piers at the two levels.