| Continued operation of bridges after a severe earthquake is essential for reduction of losses, timely delivery of emergency services, and post-earthquake recovery. One of the critical factors for determining the technical and economical feasibility of repairing damaged structures is residual displacement. The research presented in this thesis is part of a larger analytical and experimental investigation to develop and validate design methods for self-centering concrete columns that inherently have relatively small residual displacements following severe earthquake shaking.; There have been some studies to develop self-centering reinforced concrete column systems, but not enough shaking table tests and analytical data upon which to base a performance evaluation, identify optimal details. The main objectives of this study are to investigate the seismic performance, identify the key design variables, and evaluate the effect of different ground motions and different column configurations for a newly developed self-centering reinforced concrete column with unbonded prestressing strand placed at the center of the cross section.; To achieve these objectives, a series of shaking table tests and analytical studies were performed. The research was conducted in three phases. First, to develop and validate new refined design methods for self-centering bridge columns, two series of shaking table tests were performed. Second, to develop and validate analytical methods and models that can accurately capture key performance attributes of conventional concrete columns and unbonded post-tensioned concrete columns under earthquake excitation, analytical investigations were conducted. Third, a series of parametric studies for self-centering columns was carried out to evaluate the effect of different ground motions and column configurations. |
