Seismic Behavior of Fatigue-Retrofitted Steel Frame Piers
Abstract: Fatigue retrofit
works have been conducted on severely fatigue damaged beam-to-column
connections of existing steel frame bridge piers in Japan. It is clear that
retrofit works provides additional stiffness but the significance on the
seismic behavior of steel frame piers is not clear. Since fatigue retrofit
works have become prevalent, the effect of fatigue retrofit works on the
seismic behavior of steel frame piers need to be understood. The objective of
this study is therefore to investigate these effects of the retrofit work,
especially installation of bolted splices, which is the most common technique.
Elasto-plastic finite element earthquake response analyses were carried out. It
is shown that the existence of bolted splices may increase seismic demand on
the piers when plastic hinge zone is located on the beam. In addition, longer
bolted splices using low yield strength steel are proposed to overcome this
problem and are shown to give beneficial effects.
Author: Kinoshita, K
Journal Code: jptsipilgg130015
