On the estimation of the ductility demand on reinforced concrete bridge piers from structural health monitoring data

A method for the estimation of the ductility demand on reinforced concrete piers during ground seismic shaking is proposed. The required input is the measurement data from a structural health monitoring system within the time window of the seismic event. The procedure relies on detection of high-frequency transients related to damage and their distance forward in time to the closest deformation extrema. A formulation is proposed which relates these measurements to the ductility demand on the pier. A step-by-step description of the procedure is provided along with a case study implementation on an experimental reinforced concrete column. The ductility demand is estimated and compared with the one obtained from the experimental force–deformation curve.