Experimental study on the seismic performance of existing reinforced concrete bridge piers with hollow rectangular section

•Experimental tests on hollow rectangular RC piers with different aspect ratio.•Specimens representative of typical design practices in force in Italy before 1980.•Two specimens failed in flexure and two failed in shear after flexural yielding.•Analysis of deformability contributions and energy dissipation capacity.•Comparison between experimental database from literature and capacity models. Experimental tests on typical existing reinforced concrete bridge piers with hollow rectangular section were carried out. The specimens were designed and realized (scale 1:4) with material and reinforcement characteristics representative of the Italian bridge structures realized prior to 1980. Four specimens were tested, with different shear span-to-section depth ratio. Cyclic tests under displacement control with constant axial load were performed. Flexure and flexure-shear failure modes were observed. Design criteria and adopted setup are described. Experimental global response and observed damage evolution are presented. Results about local response and hysteretic energy dissipation are analysed. A database of tests on elements of the same typology tested in this work and subjected to shear or flexure-shear failure mode is collected from literature, and a comparison with shear strength capacity models from literature and codes is carried out.