ABSTRACT
Vehicle collision with reinforced concrete (RC) pier is one of the leading causes of viaduct failures. Therefore, impact behaviors of RC pier are of significant importance for viaducts safety. However, previous experimental impact studies were concentrated on impact behaviors of RC beam, few experimental studies on impact behaviors of RC pier was conducted. In this paper, a series of impact tests were conducted to study the reinforcement ratio and impact velocity effects on the impact behaviors. The impact test results showed that a high reinforcement ratio led to a high impact resistance that reducing the total displacement, residual displacement and energy absorption capacity, and a high impact velocity increased the total displacement, peak impact force and energy absorption capacity. Difference between the impact behaviors and the corresponding static behaviors was discussed, the results of which showed that the failure modes were both shear failure while the crack patterns were different.
