Strength and Ductility of Reinforced Concrete Highway Bridge Pier

Engr. Md. Abdur Rahman Bhuiyan, Ph.D

Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering
Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology (CUET), Chittagong-4349
E-mail: arbhuiyance@cuet.ac.bd

Abstract: Bridges play very important role for evacuation and emergency routes for rescues, first
aid, medical services, fire-fighting and transporting urgent disaster commodities. In view of
importance of highway bridge in transportation network, it is the key issue to minimize as much as
possible loss of the bridge functions during earthquakes. In the last few earthquakes, for instance,
the Kobe earthquake in 1995, the Northridge earthquake in 1994, the Chi-Chi earthquake in 1999,
and the Chile and Haiti earthquakes in 2010 have demonstrated that a number of highway bridges
have collapsed or have been severely damaged, even though they were subjected to earthquake
ground shaking of an intensity that has been frequently less than the current code intensities. This
unexpectedly poor performance can in majority of cases be attributed to design philosophy adopted
in addition to the lack of attention in design details. In this context, this report is devoted towards
demonstrating typical damage scenario of highway bridges in the last few earthquakes followed by a
short review on performance based seismic design philosophy being adopted in the design of highway
bridges in Japan, USA, etc. Moreover, a brief outline of analytical procedure for evaluating lateral
strength and ductility capacity of bridge pier as recommended in Japanese seismic code is discussed.

1. Introduction

Bridges are essential components of an overall transportation system as they play important roles in
evacuation and emergency routes for rescues, first-aid, firefighting, medical services and transporting
disaster commodities. The performance of highway bridge systems observed in past earthquakes—
including the 1971 San Fernando earthquake, the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the 1995 Great
Hanshin earthquake in Japan, the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake in Taiwan, the 2010 Chile earthquake,
and the 2010 Haiti earthquake—have demonstrated that bridges are highly susceptible to damages
during earthquakes (Basöz et al. 1999, Yamazaki et al. 2000).

Bridges give the impression of being rather simple structural systems. Indeed, they have always
occupied a special place in the in the affections of structural designers because their structural form
tends to be a simple expression of their functional requirement. Bridges, possibly because of their
structural simplicity, have not performed well as might be expected under seismic attack. In recent
earthquakes in California in 1989, Japan in 1995, etc. modern bridges designed specifically for seismic
 2

resistance have collapsed or have been severely damaged when subjected to ground shaking of an
intensity that has frequently been less that corresponding to current code intensities.

Earthquakes have a habit of identifying structural weakness and concentrating damage at these
locations. With building structures, the consequences may not necessarily be disastrous, because of
high degree of redundancy generally inherent in building structural systems. Typically, bridges have
little or no redundancy in the structural systems, and failure of one structural element or connection
between elements is thus more likely to result in collapse. A large number of highway bridges have
experienced severe damage/collapse due to inadequate flexural strength and ductility of the bridge
piers in the recent earthquakes. For instance, Figure 1(a) shows damage to the base of a column
attributable to lap slice bond failure, which occurred in the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989.
Inadequate flexural strength may result from butt welding of longitudinal reinforcement close to the
maximum moment locations. Figure 1(b) shows an example of flexural failure of a pier of the Hanshin
Expressway in the Kobe earthquake in 1995. This failure was initiated by failure of a large number of
butt welds close to the pier base. Tension shift effects result in peak reinforcement strains being
almost constant for a height above the pier base equal to half of the pier diameter. The failure
depicted in Figure 1(b) was one of large number of piers in the Hanshin Expressway, where weld
failure contributed to pier failure. Figure 1(c) and 1(d) show failure of flexural plastic hinges in the
earthquakes. The low levels of transverse reinforcements were noted in the piers. In Japan, a
number of bridge piers developed flexure-shear failures at pier mid-height level during the 1982
Urakawa oki earthquake and the 1995 Kobe earthquake, as a consequence of premature termination
of longitudinal reinforcements. Figure 1(e) shows the flexure-shear failure of bridge piers initiated at
bar cutoff locations around the pier mid-height level in the 1995 Kobe earthquake. Failure of eighteen
piers of the collapse section of the Hanshin Expressway in the 1995 Kobe earthquake was also
initiated due to premature termination of 33% longitudinal reinforcement at 20% pier height (Figure
1(f)) (Preistley et al. 2996).

Shear failures also occurred extensively in the 1971 San Fernando earthquake, 1989 Loma Prieta
earthquake, 1994 Northridge earthquake and 1995 Kobe earthquake (Priestley et al. 1996). Figure 2
shows examples of bridge piers collapse caused by shear failures. Because of failure of transverse
reinforcements, column shear failure often results in a loss of structural confinement of the pier, with
subsequent failure under gravity loads.

Extensive damage of highway bridges triggered as a consequence of recent earthquakes has led to
significant advances in bridge seismic design. Near-field ground motions developed in the Northridge
and Kobe earthquakes are included in the 1996 Japanese and 1999 Caltrans design codes (JRA 1996,
Caltrans 1999). The conventional seismic coefficient method has been replaced by ductility design
method, and linear/nonlinear dynamic response analysis is now used on routine basis in design of
 3

bridges with a complex structural response. This has led to the development of performance based
seismic design of highway bridge pier, which is being incorporated in various seismic codes (JRA
1996, 2002, Caltrans 1999, etc.)

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

(e) (f)
Fig. 1. A few damage scenario of a few highway bridges in the recent earthquakes (Priestley et al. 1996) (a) Bond failure of lap
slices of bridge pier in the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, (b) Flexural failure of a bridge pier in the 1995 Kobe earthquake,
 4

(c) Confinement failure at column top in the 1971 San Fernando earthquake, (d) Failure of flexural plastic hinges in bridge piers
captured by connecting wall, Bull Creek Canyon Channel bridge, 1994 Northridge earthquake, (e) Flexural-shear failure at pier
midheight of Route 43/2 overpass, due to premature termination of longitudinal reinforcement in the 1995 Kobe earthquake,
and (f) Flexural failure above pier base of piers of the Hanshin Expressway in the 1995 Kobe earthquake

Figure 2. Shear failure of columns in the 1994 Northridge earthquake (Priestley et al. 1996)

2. Principle of Seismic Design and Seismic Performance Criteria

Basic concept of design philosophy and seismic performance criteria are more or less similar among
seismic codes in Japan (JRA 1996, 2002), the USA (AASHTO 1995, ATC32 1996, Caltrans 1999, the
EU (European Standard 1994 and New Zealand (TNZ 1994), i.e., for small-to-moderate earthquakes
bridges should be resisted within the elastic range of structural components without significant
damage, and bridges exposed to shaking in large earthquakes should not collapse. In each code, the
performance requirements depend on bridge importance, which is classified into 2 to 3 categories and
levels of earthquake ground motion. In EU and New Zealand codes, design force is factored by the
importance factor. In AASHTO and Caltrans, importance is reflected in the evaluation of the response
modification factor. In Japan, importance is reflected in the evaluation of the design ductility factor of
substructures, which subsequently affects the evaluation of the response modification factor.
Ground Motion (GM) Standard Bridges Important Bridges
GM with high probability of occurrence Keeping sound functions of bridges
(Seismic performance level 1)
GM with high Type-I GM No critical damage Limited seismic damages
probability of (Plate boundary earthquake) (Seismic and capable of
occurrence performance level recovering bridge
Type-II GM 3) functions within a short
(Intra-plate earthquake) period
(Seismic performance
level 2)
Table 1. Design Earthquake ground Motions and seismic Performance of Bridges (JRA 2002)
 5

Ground Motion (GM) Service level Damage level

Ordinary Important Ordinary Important
Bridges Bridges Bridges Bridges
Functional evaluation Immediate Immediate Repairable Minimum
GM Damage damage
Safety evaluation GM Limited Immediate Significant Repairable
damage damage
Table 2. Design Earthquake ground Motions and seismic Performance of Bridges (ATC 32 1996 and Caltrans 1999))

Seismic Seismic Safety Seismic Seismic Repairability Design

performance Design Serviceability Emergency Permanent
Design Repairability Repairability
Seismic To ensure the To ensure the No repair Only easy repair
Performance safety against normal functions works is works are required
Level 1: keeping girder of bridges needed to
the sound unseating recover the
functions of functions
bridges
Seismic Capable of Capable of Capable of easily
Performance recovering recovering undertaking
Level 2: limited Same as above functions within functions by permanent repair
damage and short period after emergency works
recovery the earthquake repair works
Seismic
Performance
Same as above ---- ---- ----
Level 3: No critical
damages
Table 3. Seismic performance of highway bridges (JRA 2002)

Table 1 shows the anticipated function of a bridge after a design earthquake in the Japanese code
(JRA 2002). Important bridges undergo “limited damage,” in which “damage” does not exceed the
stage in which the restoring force of main structural components initiates deterioration. Hence,
“limited damage” is intended to be almost “immediately functional.” ATC32 (1996) and Caltrans
(1999) classify the performance criteria into service and damage levels as shown in Table 2. In
service level, “immediate” implies full access to normal traffic almost immediately following the
earthquake, and “limited” implies that limited access (reduced lanes, and light emergency traffic) is
possible within days of the earthquake, and that full service is restorable within months. In damage
level, “repairable damage” denotes damage repairable with minimum risk of losing functionality.
“Significant damage” denotes a minimum risk of collapse, but would require closure for repair, while
“minimum damage” denotes essentially elastic performance. “No collapse,” “no major damage,” “no
secondary injuries or fatalities because emergency equipment cannot get through,” “major important
structures and lifeline routes must remain operational” are the current Caltrans performance criteria
(Roberts 1999). It is important that the important bridges should provide full access to normal traffic
immediately following the safety-evaluation earthquake.
 6

Seismic performances of highway bridges as a target of seismic design of are classified into three
levels in view of safety, serviceability and repairability (JRA 2002). Safety implies performances to
avoid loss of life due to unseating of superstructure during an earthquake; serviceability means that a
bridge is capable of keeping functional such as fundamental transportation functions, role of
evacuation routes and emergency routes for rescue, firefighting, first aid, medical services and
transporting emergency goods to the refugees and repairability denotes capability of repairing the
seismic damages. Table 3 summarizes the items of seismic performances in a view of safety,
serviceability and repairability for seismic design.

3. Design of Reinforced Concrete Bridge Piers

In the 1995 Kobe earthquake, a number of reinforced concrete piers suffered severe damage due to
flexure-shear failure at mid-height as a consequence of premature termination of longitudinal
reinforcement. Bar termination was determined based on design moment distribution, without
accounting for the effect of tension shift due to diagonal shear cracking. This resulted in a short
development length of reinforcements lap spliced at mid-height (Kawashima and Unjoh 1997). Failure
of the eighteen spans of the collapsed Hanshin Expressway was triggered by this deficiency (MOC
1995). Allowable shear stress had been overestimated and the lateral confinement of the core
concrete was poor. Important point is that the vulnerability of reinforced concrete piers associated
with the above deficiencies was not widely recognized prior to the Kobe earthquake.

As a consequence of the Kobe earthquake, Design Specifications of Highway Bridges were extensively
revised in 1996 (JRA 1996). The ductility check of reinforced concrete piers included in 1990 Design
Specifications was upgraded to “ductility design method” applied to every structural component in
which seismic effect is predominant. An ordinary bridge is designed assuming a principal plastic hinge
at each pier to meet the following requirements:

S s .W
Pa  (1)
g .R

in which Pa is the lateral capacity of a pier, S s is the elastic response acceleration, R is the
response modification factor and W is the tributary weight. Assuming the equal energy principle, the

response modification factor is assumed to be R  2  a 1 , in which  a is design displacement

ductility factor of a pier. The pier strength and the design ductility factor of pier can be determined
based on the failure mode.
 7

3.1 Failure mode, lateral strength and ductility capacity of a bridge pier

Flexural strength is evaluated from the standard moment vs. curvature analysis. Sectional analysis is
conducted for every pier assuming a stress vs. strain relationship for concrete and reinforcing bar.
The stress vs. strain relationship for reinforcing bar is idealized by an elastic-perfect plastic model
(Figs.3 and 4), while the stress vs. strain relation of confined concrete (Fig. 5) is given as (JRA 2002)

  1    n1 
 E  1  c 
 c   c c  n   cc  
 0   c   cc  , (2a)
  

 cc  Edes  c   cc    cc   c   cu 

in which  cc and  cc are strength of confined concrete and strain to corresponding to  cc ,

respectively, E c is the elastic modulus of concrete, E des is the gradient at descending branch and

Ec  cc
n
 Ec cc   cc  .
 s sy
 cc   c 0  3.8 s sy ;  cc  0.002  0.033 , (2b)
 c0

 c20
E des  11 .2 , (2c)
 s . sy

where  c 0 is design strength of concrete,  sy is the yield strength of reinforcement,  and  are

shape factors and  s is the volumetric ratio of tie reinforcements.

The ultimate displacement d u is defined as displacement at the gravity center of superstructure

when the concrete compression strain at out-most reinforcements reaches the following ultimate

strain  cu

  cc type  I earthquake
 cu    cc (2d)
 cc  0.2 Edes type  II earthquake
 8

 sy

Fig. 3. Idealized stress-strain curve for reinforcing bar

Fig. 4. Typical stress-strain curve for ductile steel (Firoze 2010)

Fig. 5. Typical stress-strain curve for concrete

 9

The ultimate displacement of a pier is evaluated from yield and ultimate curvatures  y and u as

(Priestley et al. 1996)

d u  d y  u   y  h  p  L p ,
 L 
(3)
 2

where h is the height of the pier and L p is the plastic hinge length given based on the width of the

pier diameter or width.

The lateral strength of a reinforced concrete pier is evaluated as (JRA 2002)

Ps  Vc  Vs , (4)

where
Vc  k c .k e .k pt .vc .b.h;
, (5)
Vc  Aw . s y .d .  sin   cos  1.15.a 

in which Vc and Vs are, respectively, shear strength of concrete and transverse reinforcement,

vc is shear strength of concrete, k c is cyclic loading effect factor, k e is effective height factor,

is modification factor depending on the tension bars ratio, b and h are effective width and height,

respectively, and Aw is area of reinforcing bars with interval a and an angle .

Based on flexural strength Pu , shear strength Ps and shear strength under static loading Ps 0 , the

failure mode of a bridge pier classifies into three modes, such as flexural failure, shear failure after
flexural damage and shear failure as

Pu  Ps : flexural failure

Pu  Ps  Ps 0 : shear failure after flexural yielding (6)

Ps 0  Pu : shear failure

and the allowable lateral capacity Pa and the allowable displacement ductility  a are provided as

P -------------- flexural failure + shear failure after flexural damage

Pa   u
 Ps 0 (7)
-------------- shear failure

 u   y ---------------- flexural failure (8)

1 
a    . y
 ----------------shear failure after flexural damage and shear failure
 1
 10

in which  is safety factor depending upon bridge importance and type of earthquake ground

motion,  y and  u are yield and ultimate displacement of the bridge pier under earthquake ground

motion. Figure 6 (a) presents the idealized bilinear force-displacement relationship to be used for
evaluating lateral strength and ductility capacity of a highway bridge pier. Figure 6(b) gives an idea
how the actual force-displacement relationship obtained from push over analysis can be idealized in a
bilinear force-displacement relationship.

(a) (b)
Fig. 6. (a) Evaluation of lateral strength and ductility capacity of a bridge pier for flexural failure (b) Typical push over response
curve for evaluating the lateral strength and ductility capacity (Elnashai and Mwafy, 2002)

3.2 Evaluation of lateral strength and deformation capacity of a reinforced concrete

pier

A simple bridge pier is considered in this section to evaluate lateral strength and ductility capacity.
The height of the pier is 11.5 m. The cross-section of the pier is 7 m ×1.9 m. The weight of the
superstructure and pier are, respectively, 990 tonf and 347 tonf. The fundamental period for the pier
is 0.30 s. Figure 7 shows the elevation and reinforcement details of the bridge pier.

Fig.7. Elevation and reinforcement details of the bridge pier

 11

Concrete Rebar
fc' = 28.0 MPa fu = 620 MPa

a = 19 mm fy= 413
ft = 1.71 MPa (auto)
 c' = 1.94 mm/m  s = 100.0 mm/m

(a) (b)
Fig. 8. Properties of concrete (a) and reinforcing bar (b) of the bridge pier

(c)
Fig. 9. Moment-curvature relationship of the pier section as obtained using Response-2000 software

3.2.1 Sectional analysis

The sectional analysis is carried out for two reasons: to find out the two possible failure modes and to
obtain the force–displacement relationship at the top of the bridge pier. The moment–curvature of
the cross-section can be obtained using the software entitled Response-2000 (Bentz and Collins,
2000), which is used in deriving the force-displacement relationship at top of the bridge pier. The
analytical procedures in Response-2000 are based on the traditional engineering beam theory, which
assumes that plane sections remain plane and that the distribution of shear stresses across the
section is defined by the rate of change of flexural stresses. For sectional analysis, three sets of

values of yield strength of steel (  sy ) and compressive strength of concrete (  c ) are considered in

the analysis. Three sets of yield strength values of reinforcing bars are 40 ksi, 60 ksi and 72.5 ksi,
and the three sets of concrete compressive strength values are 2500 psi, 3000 psi, 3500 psi and 4000
psi. The objective of taking three sets of strength parameters of concrete and steel is to compare the
moment-curvature relationships and subsequently the lateral strength and ductility capacity of the
bridge pier. The longitudinal and tie reinforcements are shown in Figure 8. A typical moment-
curvature relationship of the bridge pier section is presented in Figure 9, in which the yield strength
and concrete compressive strength are considered 60 ksi and 3.0 ksi, respectively.
 12

3.2.2 Push over analysis

Following the procedure as recommended by JRA (2002), the force–displacement relationship at the
top of the pier can be obtained with the help of the moment-curvature relationship as obtained from
the sectional analysis. In this case, the bridge pier is divided into 50 slices, as recommended in JRA
(2002), along its height and for each section the moment–curvature relationship is attained. Finally,
the lateral displacement  at top of the pier can be obtained using the following Equation:

50
    i  dy  d i  , (9)
i 1

where  is the displacement, i is the curvature of each cross section, dy is the width of each
cross section, d i is the distance from the top of the pier to the center of gravity of each cross

section.

However, the professional software, for example, Seismostruct (Seismostruct, 2012) can also be used
to conduct the push over analysis and subsequently to obtain the force-displacement relationship at
top of the bridge pier. Having obtained the force-displacement relationship at top of the bridge pier, a
bilinear force-displacement idealization (Figure 6 (b)) (Elnashai and Mwafy, 2002) can be applied to

approximate the lateral strength Pa , yield displacement  y . Finally, the ductility capacity of the

bridge pier can be obtained using Equation (8) and Figures 6 (a) and (b). Figures 10 (a) and (b) show
typical force-displacement curves obtained using the Seismostruct software, which can be used for
evaluating the lateral strength of the bridge pier. As can be observed from Figures 10 (a) and (b, the
yield strength of reinforcing bar plays very important role in evaluating lateral strength and ductility
capacity of a bridge pier indicating that a careful consideration is needed in selecting high strength
reinforcing bar in the design of reinforced bridge pier.

(a) (b)
 13

Fig. 10. Force-displacement curves obtained using the push over analysis

3.3 ACI 318-02 special provisions for seismic design of RC structures

The principal goal of the special provisions is to ensure adequate ductility under inelastic
displacement reversals brought on by earthquake loading. The provisions achieve this goal by
requiring the designer to provide for concrete confinement and inelastic rotation capacity. The
confinement for concrete is provided by transverse reinforcement consisting of stirrups, hoops and
crossties. To ensure adequate anchorage, a seismic hook [with a bend not less than 135 o
and a 6 bar
diameter (but not less than 3 in) extension that engages the longitudinal reinforcements and projects
into the interior of the stirrups or hoops] is used on stirrups, hoops and crossties (ACI-318-02). To
ensure adequate ductility and toughness under inelastic rotations, ACI 318-02 code sets a minimum
concrete strength of 3000 psi for normal concrete. According to ACI-318-02, reinforcing bars must
meet ASTM requirements. ASTM A 706 specifies a Grade 60 steel with a maximum yield strength of
78 ksi and a minimum tensile strength equal to 80 ksi. ASTM A 615 specifies a Grade 75 steel with a
minimum yield strength of 75 ksi and a minimum tensile strength of 100000 ksi. The actual tensile
strength must be at least 1.25 times the actual yield strength. The upper limits in yield strength are
used to limit the maximum moment capacity of the section because the seismic shear depends upon
the moment capacity at a section of RC member. The minimum ratio of tensile strength to yield
strength helps provide adequate inelastic rotation capacity of a concrete member (ACI-318-02). Table
4 shows some attributes of reinforcing bar employed in different specifications.

Attribute ASTM 706 AS/NZS 4671 BS 4449 JIS G 3112

Grade 60 Grade 500E Grade 500C SD 490
Origin U.S.A Australia, U.K. Japan
New Zealand
Yield 540  Fy  420 600  Fy  500 650  Fy  485 625  Fy  490
strength,
Fy (MPa)
Ultimate 550(min)  1.25 F1
y .4 Fy  Ts  1.15 Fy1.38 Fy  Ts  1.13Fy 620 (min)
strength,
Ts (MPa)
Elongation 200 mm 5db 5db 5db
gauge
Elongation 10-14 (%) -- -- 12 % (min)
at fracture
Elongation
at --  10% 6% (min) --
maximum
force
Table 4. Attributes of seismic grade of steels (Firoze 2010)

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 14

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