Experimental Investigation of Stainless Steel Reinforced Concrete Bridge Piers Under Cyclic Loading

The application of stainless steel as reinforcement can boost the durability of sea-crossing bridges in ocean environment, while the study on the seismic performance of stainless steel reinforced concrete bridge piers is in need.A set of quasi-static tests on two RC bridge piers reinforced by stainless steel (SS) and a control specimen reinforced by conventional carbon steel (CS) are presented in this work.Seismic indexes of all the specimens are compared.VIC-3D system is used to measure the deformation of the column bottom (plastic hinge area).Experimental results indicate that SS columns have higher yield strength and deformation capacity.However, longer concrete cover spalling length and more significant spiral exposure are observed in the tests.This is caused by the lower bonding strength of SS specimens.When the drift ratio is greater than 2%, the CS specimen has better performance in energy dissipation.The deformation capacity analysis shows both types of the specimens exhibit similar flexural behavior.The slip between reinforcement and concrete of SS specimens is severer than that of the control specimen.Overall, SS/CS reinforced concrete bridge piers exhibit comparable seismic capacity.