Seismic Performance of Bridge Pier with FRP Wrapping

This paper presents the results of an experimental study on the seismic performance of reinforced concrete (RC) bridge piers wrapped with FRP at the lap-spliced region. It is well known that the FRP wrapping on the surface of concrete bridge pier can prevent concrete cover from spalling and it can reduce the slip displacement of lap-spliced longitudinal re-bars due to confinement. In order to develop the effective way of strengthening the concrete bridge pier with poor lap-spliced longitudinal re-bars, which is not designed under seismic design consideration, a series of pier test under seismic loading condition is conducted. As a result, FRP wrapped bridge pier under seismic loading exhibits ductile behavior with plastic deformation at lap-spliced region. Half-scaled six circular and nine square pier specimens were tested under uniform concentric axial compression and quasi-static lateral loading at the top of the pier. For the purpose of comparison, two piers without lap-splice and two piers with lap-splice were not wrapped with FRP and tested under same loading condition. Other experimental parameters were the height of FRP wrapping and the reinforcing method. The experimental results showed that the FRP wrapping could significantly increase ductility of piers with lap-spliced longitudinal re-bars at the potential plastic hinge region.