Seismic Performance of Novel Resilient Hinges for Columns and Application on Irregular Bridges

Abstract

4Bridges are important components of the transportation network that should maintain 5 mobility and accessibility even after severe earthquakes. The current design philosophy of 6 earthquake-resistant bridges requires the disastrous seismic energy to be dissipated in hinges 7 that are formed in the piers, whilst the deck should remain essentially elastic. However, post-8 earthquake restoration of damaged piers is challenging, time-consuming, and causes traffic 9 disruptions. In this context, this paper proposes a novel resilient hinge, which is cost-effective 10 and has minimal damage during earthquakes. The resilient hinge is a versatile substructure 11 that dissipates energy through the yielding of easily replaceable steel bars, thus offering rapid 12 restoration times, whilst it is designed to have recentering capabilities, as a number of steel 13 bars remain primarily elastic. Numerical models of single-column piers with the proposed 14 hinge were studied and compared against conventional reinforced concrete piers to 15 investigate the efficiency of the design. It was found that the piers with resilient hinges 16 exhibit a significant reduction in residual drifts when compared to the ones of the 17 conventional piers. Application of the proposed philosophy in irregular bridge models 18 enables a more rational and even distribution of ductility requirements along the bridge piers.

Shaking table tests of a reinforced concrete bridge pier with a low‐cost sliding pendulum system

“…For example, Loli et al promoted a rocking RC pier with a nonlinear soil response to dissipate seismic forces. Mitoulis and Rodriguez proposed a new resilient hinge device for RC piers, among others [eg,]. These systems represent endeavors to develop hysteresis responses that can show limited residual displacements to ensure the seismic resilience of RC bridge piers.…”

Experimental study on bolted and anchored beam-to-column joints of prefabricated concrete frames

“…The energy dissipation of all specimens under the elastic state in the load control phase was poor. After entering the displacement control phase, the energy dissipation capacity became highly dependent on the hysteretic dissipation at the hinge (Mitoulis and Rodriguez, 2016), and the energy-dissipating capacities had been improved due to accumulated damage; however, the growth was slow. The equivalent viscous damping coefficient continuously increased, and all specimens retained their growth state.…”

Seismic Design Method of Self‐Centring‐Segment Bridge Piers with Tensile‐Type Viscoelastic Dampers

“…However, shear resistance is beneficial for increasing the ductility and self-centring capability of precast-segment bridge columns. Mitoulis and Rodriguez Rodriguez [11] proposed a novel resilient hinge. is structure dissipates energy through the yielding of easily replaceable steel bars to provide rapid restoration times, thus being cost-effective and undergoing minimal damage during earthquakes.…”