Experimental Investigation of Nonlinear Cyclic Behavior of Circular Concrete Bridge Piers with Pitting Corrosion

Abstract

In this study, three reinforced concrete (RC) columns with and without corrosion and different reinforcement details are tested under lateral cyclic loading. One of these columns is well-confined to represent modern RC bridge piers that are designed according to the current seismic design codes, and the second column has the same detail with corrosion damage. The third column is a lightly confined corroded column to represent aging RC bridge piers that are not designed to the current seismic design codes. The experimental results showed that corrosion significantly impacts the ductility loss more than the strength loss of the tested corroded columns. In addition, although the uncorroded column was designed according to the current seismic design code, severe inelastic buckling in the vertical bars was observed during the cyclic tests.