ABSTRACT
With accelerated bridge construction gaining increasing popularity in the past decades, seismic performances of connections between prefabricated members were becoming key technical issues. Aiming at the technical defects of grouted sleeves, a new type of connecting scheme with an expanded connecting pedestal constructed at column-footing joint has been proposed. The present study investigates and verifies the seismic behaviors of precast bridge piers using this new type of connections. Quasi-static cyclic test was conducted for two 1/3-scale specimens with rectangular section and circular section, respectively, while the two specimens were of the same height and footing design based on practical applications. Experimental results showed that the circular section specimen showed similar energy dissipation, residual displacement and stiffness degradation trends to the rectangular section specimen. And the overall seismic performances of the precast piers were verified and have shown similar results to the cast-in-place reference piers.
