Improvement of energy damage index bounds for circular reinforced concrete bridge piers under dynamic analysis

Abstract

AbstractAn improvement of energy damage index bounds for circular reinforced concrete (RC) bridge piers under dynamic time history analysis is presented in this study. The energy‐based damage model has been defined as a ratio of hysteresis dissipation energy to input energy for performance evaluation of circular RC bridge pier systems. Based on the energy balance equation, the mentioned damage model can consider all energy aspects, including kinematic energy, strain energy, hysteresis energy, damping energy, and input energy. Additionally, the effect of ground motion duration, amplitude, and frequency content is appropriately considered in this damage model. For this purpose, the damage limit state bounds for two empirical RC bridge piers are statistically evaluated under the 22 far‐field ground motion sets of FEMA‐P695 for simulation of strong‐earthquake motion and consideration of record‐to‐record variability. First of all, appropriate validation between empirical and numerical fiber element models is implemented to estimate accurate results. Then, damage data at each performance level through strain limit states are collected by developing energy incremental dynamic analysis curves. Statistical results on collected damage data are presented in all performance levels to determine damage index bounds by the convolution of fragility curve distribution. Hence, five damage index bounds at five performance‐level are suggested, including very slight, slight, moderate, extensive, and complete damage. Finally, the effect of the other damping ratios on the modified energy damage model is carried out by using the beta coefficient in the formula. In the end, the modified energy damage model is compared with other damage indices to investigate the efficiency of the proposed damage model.