Energy dissipation characteristics of retrofitted damaged low-strength concrete bridge pier

Abstract

Lateral load tests were conducted, for four scaled-down (1 : 4) bridge piers made of low-strength concrete, with two of them having 12.4 MPa up to the damage state, and the other two having 16.5 MPa. These damaged bridge piers were then retrofitted with carbon-fibre-reinforced polymer (CFRP) wrapping in single and double layers, and tested again under the same cyclic quasi-static loading. A numerical investigation of these bridge piers was carried out, and the results of the energy dissipation are presented. The numerical results were in good agreement with the experimental results and reveal that, with increasing the number of layers of CFRP on a bridge, there is an increased amount of energy dissipation and hence ductility of the pier. The CFRP retrofitted piers not only recover their original strength, but the lateral load capacity is also increased considerably.