Full-Scale Experimental Study of a Reinforced Concrete Bridge Pier under Truck Collision

Abstract

Recently, vehicle collisions with bridge piers have occurred frequently, which have attracted the attention of researchers. However, as one of the most important research methods, vehicle collision tests for reinforced concrete (RC) bridge piers are limited. The impact responses and damage characteristics of full-scale RC piers have seldom been studied in actual truck collision tests, which hinders further development in this research area. Therefore, a medium-duty truck will be employed to carry out a full-scale crash test on an RC single-column pier 1 m in diameter in this study. The crashing truck had a mass of 7.76 t and a collision speed of 81 km/h. The damage and failure level of the vehicle and RC pier will be examined, and some critical data will be obtained from the test, such as the displacement, velocity, and acceleration time histories of the truck, and the deflection, acceleration, and reinforcement strain time histories of the RC pier. In addition, based on the accelerations of the cargo box and engine, the vehicular impact forces will be derived approximately and discussed. This will provide valuable experimental data for the study of vehicular collisions with RC bridge piers, especially in the calibration and validation of the finite element (FE) models for truck collisions and the impact resistance evaluation of RC bridge piers.