Submitted to Journal of Composites for Construction, ASCE

Cyclic load tests on precast segmental bridge columns with

both steel and basalt FRP reinforcement

Zhong-Kui Cai1; Zhenyu Wang2,*, Aff.M.ASCE; Tony Y. Yang3

Abstract: This paper presents an experimental investigation on a novel precast segmental

bridge column (PSBC), which is longitudinally reinforced with both fiber reinforced polymer
(FRP) bars and conventional steel bars. The major objectives of this study are to: (1) compare
the seismic performance of FRP-steel reinforced PSBCs (FSR-PSBCs) with the conventional
steel reinforced PSBC (SR-PSBC) members; and (2) investigate the effects of the proportion
of FRP to steel reinforcement and the gravity load level on the cyclic behavior of the
FSR-PSBC. To this end, quasi-static tests were conducted on four large-scale PSBC
specimens with heights of 4.2 m and cross-sections of 0.6 m  0.4 m . Basalt FRP (BFRP)
bars were employed in the FSR-PSBC specimens. Test results showed that as compared to the
SR-PSBC, FSR-PSBC specimens exhibited appreciably improved self-centering capacities,
post-yield stiffness ratios, displacement ductility and comparable hysteretic energy
dissipation abilities. Furthermore, after the FSR-PSBC specimens were cyclically loaded up
to a drift ratio of 5.5%, the damages were insignificant and can be repaired rapidly, indicating
promising post-earthquake serviceability of these bridge columns.

Author keywords: precast segmental columns; FRP bars; hybrid reinforced columns;
seismic performance; self-centering capability.

1Assistant professor, College of Civil Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 211816, China;
formerly, Ph.D. candidate, School of Civil Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150090,
China. E-mail: zhongkuicai@njtech.edu.cn.
2Professor,
School of Civil Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150090, China; Key Lab
of Structures Dynamic Behavior and Control of the Ministry of Education, Harbin Institute of Technology,
Harbin 150090, China; and Key Lab of Smart Prevention and Mitigation of Civil Engineering Disasters of
the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150090,
China. (corresponding author). E-mail: zhenyuwang@hit.edu.cn
3Executive
Director, International Joint Research Laboratory of Earthquake Engineering, Tongji
University, Shanghai, China; and Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, University of British
Columbia, Vancouver V6T 1Z4, Canada. E-mail: yang@civil.ubc.ca
*Corresponding Author: Zhenyu Wang, zhenyuwang@hit.edu.cn.

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1. Introduction
In recent years, a great deal of interest and attention have been directed to the precast
segmental bridge column (PSBC). This is mainly because the PSBC can combine the
advantages of fast construction speed (Accelerated Bridge Construction, per the Federal
Highway Administration of United States), reduced traffic interruption, low environmental
impact and increased construction site safety (FHWA 2011; Khaleghi et al. 2012; Haber et al.
2014; Sideris et al. 2015; Bu et al. 2016; Ameli et al. 2016). Previous studies have
demonstrated that by reinforcing the PSBC with energy dissipation (ED) bars, i.e. bonded
steel reinforcement that is continuous across the segment joints, both the hysteretic energy
dissipation ability and the load carrying capacity of the PSBC can be appreciably improved
(Ou et al. 2007; Wang et al. 2008). However, the post-earthquake residual displacements of
such steel reinforced PSBCs (SR-PSBCs) could be significant (Ou et al. 2010; Bu et al. 2012).
The large residual drifts of bridge columns will render the bridge to be unserviceable, which
severely affects the post-disaster rescue and relief operations (Shrestha and Hao 2016).
Furthermore, bridge columns with large residual drifts will have to be demolished after
earthquakes even if the visually judged damage is mild, due to the technical difficulties and
elevated costs to straighten them (Kawashima 2000; Ruiz-Garcia and Miranda 2006; Fahmy
et al. 2009; Liossatou and Fardis 2015).
Over the last two decades, research in seismic engineering has demonstrated the
effectiveness of the post-yield stiffness in improving seismic performance and self-centering
capacities of structures. Early on, MacRae and Kawashima (MacRae and Kawashima 1997)
and Christopoulos et al. (Christopoulos et al. 2002) found that, both the maximum
displacement response and the residual displacement of bilinear single-degree-of-freedom
oscillators can be mitigated by increasing the post-yield stiffness. Subsequently, Sakai and
Mahin (Sakai and Mahin 2004) carried out dynamic analyses on post-tensioned reinforced
concrete (RC) bridge columns. Research results revealed that the RC columns with higher
post-yield stiffness exhibited better performance with smaller peak displacements and
residual drifts. Pettinga et al. (Pettinga et al. 2007) further summarized three strategies that
can enhance the post-yield stiffness of structures by altering the mechanical properties of the
material, section and structure level, respectively. Later on, Wu et al. (Wu et al. 2009) applied
the first strategy proposed by Pettinga et al. and developed a novel composite bar, which was
made with fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) skin over a steel core. Numerical and experimental
investigations on bridge columns reinforced with such steel-FRP composite bars indicated

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that improved post-yield stiffness and reduced residual drifts can be realized (Fahmy et al.
2010; Sun et al. 2011; Sun et al. 2014). More recently, to avoid the difficulties in
manufacturing the preceding steel-FRP composite bar, Ibrahim et al. (Ibrahim et al. 2015;
Ibrahim et al. 2016) proposed directly adopting FRP bars and conventional steel bars as the
longitudinal reinforcement for RC bridge columns. Quasi-static tests of such FRP-steel
reinforced (FSR) bridge columns were conducted on cantilever specimens with shear span
lengths of 850 mm and cross sections of 200  200 mm. Experimental results showed that the
hybrid FRP-steel reinforcement was very effective in improving the post-yield stiffness and
the self-centering capacities of the bridge columns. In addition, the axial behavior of short
and slender columns which were longitudinally reinforced with both glass FRP bars and steel
bars were investigated by Hales et al. (2016; 2017) through axial load tests and analytical
studies.
So far, however, there have been very few studies on PSBCs which aim at improving the
post-yield stiffness and mitigating the post-earthquake residual drifts. Actually, in order to
realize the application of PSBCs in earthquake-prone regions, most of the past research on
PSBCs mainly focused on increasing the column energy dissipation and lateral strengths
(Wang et al. 2008; ElGawady and Sha'Lan 2011; Motaref et al. 2014; Kim et al. 2015; Hung
et al. 2017). Valuable explorations have been carried out by Ou et al. (Ou et al. 2007; Ou et al.
2010; Ou et al. 2010), with the aim of combining small residual drifts and moderate energy
dissipation abilities. In their investigations, the flag-shaped hysteretic behavior of the PSBC
was realized by unbonding part of an ED bar and reducing the amount of ED bars. However,
this method also led to significant decrease in both lateral strength and hysteretic energy
dissipation. As reported by Sakai and Mahin (2004), a bridge column with smaller energy
dissipation capacity tends to have larger displacement response under earthquake excitation.
Furthermore, as observed in shake table tests on post-tensioned bridge columns conducted by
Jeong et al. (Jeong et al. 2008), unbonding of longitudinal steel bars resulted in negative
post-yield stiffness of the column, which further led to larger displacement response.
Based on the preceding research background, the main objective of the research
presented here is to improve both the seismic performance and the self-centering capacities of
the PSBCs by enhancing their post-yield stiffness. This is achieved by applying the concept
of hybrid FRP-steel reinforcement to the PSBCs, i.e. replacing part of the ED bars with an
equal amount of FRP bars. For the sake of brevity, this novel type of bridge column is
referred to as the FRP-steel reinforced PSBC (FSR-PSBC) in this study. The basalt FRP
(BFRP) bar was employed in this experimental study considering its large rupture strain in

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comparison to carbon and glass FRP bar products (MHURCC 2010; Ibrahim et al. 2015). The
main contributions of the present study include: (i) comparing the seismic performance of the
FSR-PSBC with conventional steel reinforced PSBC (SR-PSBC); and (ii) investigating the
influences of the proportion of FRP to steel reinforcement and the gravity load level on the
cyclic behavior of the FSR-PSBC. To this end, quasi-static tests were performed on
large-scale PSBC specimens with variable test variables, and detailed discussions of their
cyclic responses, in terms of post-yield stiffness, self-centering capacity, lateral stiffness,
energy dissipation ability and displacement ductility, are presented in this paper.

2. Specimen design and fabrication

Geometric dimensions and construction procedure
A total of four cantilever PSBC specimens with identical geometric dimensions were
designed and fabricated for quasi-static tests. As illustrated in Fig.1 (a), each PSBC specimen
was composed of one rigid footing ( 1500  800  800 mm), six segments ( 600  400  500 mm)
and a loading stub ( 600  600  400 mm), thus leading to a total height of 4.2 m. The
specimen was fixed on the laboratory strong floor by two high-strength ground anchors,
while the lateral loading was imposed on the loading stub along the weak axis of the bridge
column, as shown in Fig.1(a). Hence, the shear span L (measured from the top of the
footing to the center of the loading stub) and the section depth h of the specimen were 3200
mm and 400 mm, respectively, resulting in a shear span to depth ratio of 8.
Configurations of the precast elements are further illustrated in Fig. 1(b). As shown in
this figure, there were ten corrugated ducts in each of the footings and the segments for
passage of the ED or BFRP bars. These longitudinal bars were continuous across the segment
joints. Steel corrugated pipes with inner diameters of 60 mm and nominal thicknesses of 0.3
mm were employed as the permanent formwork for theses corrugated ducts. These
corrugated pipes were not introduced in the loading stub because they interfered with the
embedded bolts used to connect the lateral actuator. In addition, a duct with a diameter of 100
mm was designed in the center of the footing, segments and the loading stub to accommodate
the unbonded post-tensioned (PT) tendons, which were composed of six 15.2 mm
seven-wire strands. Fig. 1 shows that the upper and the lower anchors of the PT strands were
positioned inside the recesses of the loading stub and the footing, respectively. In addition,
two locating pins were introduced at each segment joint to provide an alignment guide during
the specimen assembling. The locating pin was a steel bar with a diameter of 10 mm and a
length of 20 mm.

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Fig. 1. Specimen design: (a) dimensions; (b) configurations

The PSBC specimens were constructed in the following manner. All the footings,
segments and loading stubs of the four specimens were cast from one batch of ready-mixed
concrete and were cured for 28 days. The assembling of the column began by placing the PT
strands inside the footing and leveling the footing by a laser level. Then the Segment 1 in Fig.
1(a) was stacked on the top of the footing with the PT strands passing through the central
duct of this segment. Subsequently, the other five segments were stacked on top of the
previous one in sequence. Epoxy resin was applied at all the segment joints to eliminate the
voids. After the six segments were erected, longitudinal ED or BFRP bars were inserted into
the corrugated ducts which were then grouted. The cementitious grout was then cured for 7
days. At last, the loading stub was stacked on the Segment 6 in Fig. 1(a) and the PT strands
were tensioned. For the four specimens presented in this study, the assembling and the
grouting were finished in only 12 hours and 10 hours, respectively.

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Test variables
The first variable investigated in this study is the proportion of the FRP reinforcement
ratio  FRP to the ED bar ratio  ED . Here, the gross cross-sectional area Ag was used to

calculate the  FRP and  ED . By deducting the area of the PT strand duct, Ag is calculated

as 0.23 m2 . Longitudinal reinforcement details of the four PSBC specimens, including one
SR-PSBC and three FSR-PSBCs, are illustrated in Fig. 2 and summarized in Table 1. The

Fig. 2. Reinforcement details of the tested specimens: (a) ED1N1; (b) BFRP1N1;
(c) BFRP2N1 and BFRP2N2.

Table 1. Details of tested specimens

Specimen ED bars BFRP bars  ED FRP ED  FRP FRP ED nG

ED1N1 4  25mm+6 16mm 0 1.37% 0 1.37% 0 0.1

BFRP1N1 4  25mm+2 16mm 4 16mm 1.02% 0.35% 1.37% 0.34 0.1

BFRP2N1 4  25mm 6 16mm 0.85% 0.52% 1.37% 0.61 0.1

BFRP2N2 4  25mm 6 16mm 0.85% 0.52% 1.37% 0.61 0.2

Note:  ED  ED bar ratio;  FRP  BFRP reinforcement ratio; nG  gravity load ratio resulting from the
externally imposed axial load.

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first specimen ED1N1 was designed as a conventional PSBC with ED bars only and served
as a reference specimen. As shown in Fig. 2(a), ED1N1 was reinforced by four  25 mm and

six 16 mm ED bars. Replacing the four 16 mm ED bars of ED1N1 with four 16 mm
BFRP bars gives the second specimen BFRP1N1, as shown in Fig. 2(b). Furthermore,
substituting six 16 mm BFRP bars for the six 16 mm ED bars of ED1N1 gives the third
and the fourth specimens BFRP2N1 and BFRP2N2, as shown in Fig. 2(c). Consequently, all
specimens had equal total reinforcement ratios  ED   FRP  1.37% , as shown in Table 1. The

 ED ,  FRP and  FRP  ED of each specimen are also presented in Table 1.

Besides the ED or BFRP bars, each segment is longitudinally reinforced by fourteen
10 mm deformed steel bars which were discontinuous across the segment joints, as indicated
in Fig. 2. These distributed bars can contribute to crack control of the PSBC at service limit
state and to mitigating the compressive stress of the segment concrete. In addition, the
segment is transversely confined by 10 mm hoops at a spacing of 100 mm. Welded hoops
with hoop configuration shown in Fig. 2 were adopted in this study. The concrete cover
thickness was 25 mm and it was measured to the outside of the hoop. As a result, the hoop
volumetric ratios for all the segments were approximately 1.0%.
The second variable examined in this study is the gravity load ratio nG of the PSBC
specimen, which is defined using Equation (1):

NG
nG  (1)
f c  Ag

where N G is the externally imposed axial load and f c is the 28-day compressive strength

of unconfined concrete. Note that N G simulates the gravity load of the bridge superstructure

and thus does not include the post-tensioning force. As shown in Table 1, the nG for
specimens ED1N1, BFRP1N1 and BFRP2N1 are 0.1, while that for the fourth specimen
BFRP2N2 is 0.2. Typically, the gravity load ratio of the bridge column is in the range from
0.05 to 0.15 (Shao et al. 2014; Ibrahim et al. 2015). According to the Chinese Guidelines for
Seismic Design of Highway Bridges (MTC 2008), the nG of the bridge column should be
less than 0.3 for regular bridge structures. In addition, the effects of the post-tensioning force
on the seismic performance of the FSR-PSBC were not studied in this paper. Hence, the
post-tensioning forces N P for all four specimens were identical. According to the research

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conducted by Bu et al. (Bu et al. 2012), the total axial force of N G  N P for the PSBC

should be restricted below 0.3 f cAg to avoid P-Delta failure. Since the N G for specimen

BFRP2N2 was 0.2 f cAg , the N P for all four specimens were determined as 0.1 f cAg .

Material properties
As shown in Fig. 3(a), the surface of the BFRP bars employed in this study is ribbed. Five
BFRP bar samples were tested to determine the tensile properties in accordance with ASTM
D7205 (ASTM 2016). The steel frame in Fig. 3(b) was used to hold both the BFRP bars and
the steel tube anchors axially aligned. Here, the anchors were used to facilitate gripping the
BFRP samples. Failure modes of the samples were characterized by the fracture of the fibers,
as indicated in Fig. 3(c). The BFRP bar average strength and elastic modulus in tension were
990 MPa and 45.2 GPa, respectively, as indicated in Table 2. Mechanical properties of all
types of steel bars employed in this experiment were tested using ASTM A370 (ASTM 2012)
and summarized in Table 2. The 28-day compressive strength of the concrete f c tested in
accordance with ASTM C39 (ASTM 2014) was 31.1MPa. As for the grout used in the
corrugated ducts, the compressive strengths at 3 days and 28 days tested using GB/T 50448
(MHURCC 2008) were 45.5 MPa and 62.4 MPa, respectively.

Fig. 3. BFRP bar tensile tests: (a) before the test; (b) preparation of the test samples;
(c) after failure.

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Table 2. Mechanical properties of steel and BFRP bars

Material d (mm) f y (MPa) f u (MPa) E (GPa)  y or  fu (με)

BFRP bar d = 16 — 990 45.2  fu  21903

ED bar d = 25 425 475 200  y  2125

ED bar d = 16 453 515 200  y  2265

Discontinuous steel bar  y  2375

d = 10 475 625 200
and steel hoop
Note: d = diameter; f y = yield strength; f u = tensile strength; E = elastic modulus in tension;  y =

yield strain of steel bars; and  fu = ultimate tensile strain of BFRP bars.

Determination of the segment height

Available studies on the effects of the segment heights on the cyclic behaviors of PSBCs
are quite limited. Experimental research from Wang et al. (Wang et al. 2008) showed that
higher energy dissipation capacity of an SR-PSBC can be achieved by increasing the heights
of the segments within the plastic hinge region. Furthermore, as pointed out by Wiles et al.
(Wiles et al. 2013), the precast units of PSBCs should be easy-to-handle which is ideal for
accelerated bridge construction. The segment heights of all the PSBC specimens in this study
were determined as 1.0Lp , where Lp is the equivalent plastic hinge length of the SR-PSBC

specimen ED1N1. The Lp of ED1N1 was approximately estimated using the plastic hinge

length equation for monolithic RC columns proposed by Paulay and Priestley (1992), as
shown in Eq. (2):

Lp  0.08L  0.022 f yd b f y in MPa  (2)

where L  3200 mm is the shear span of the specimen; f y  453.5 MPa and d b  25 mm are

the yield strength and nominal diameter, respectively, of the  25 mm ED bar. Accordingly,
the Lp of ED1N1 equaled 505 mm. Therefore, the segment heights for all the specimens in

this study were taken as 500 mm, as shown in Fig.1 (a).

3. Test program
Test setup
The PSBC specimens were tested under combined lateral cyclic displacement and constant
axial load using the test setup shown in Fig. 4. As shown in Fig. 4(a), the lateral loading was

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applied by a horizontal servo-controlled MTS actuator along the weak axis of the bridge
column. Note that previous studies (Pampanin et al. 2003; Pettinga et al. 2007) have
concluded that the self-centering capacity of the column is sensitive to the P-Delta effects.
Therefore, a purpose designed loading apparatus, as shown in Fig. 4(b), was used to apply the
external axial load N G which simulated the gravity load of the bridge superstructure. N G
was applied to the specimen prior to the lateral displacements and its value was maintained
by a load cell and a pressure-relief valve during testing. Furthermore, when lateral
displacements were imposed, the axial loading apparatus was able to move with the loading
stub of the specimen, as depicted in Fig. 4(b). Moreover, the upper part of the steel hinge, the
hydraulic jack and the load cell can only move horizontally without rotation. Thus, the axial
force N G was maintained in the gravity direction throughout the testing. Therefore, the test
setup employed in this study was capable of accounting for the P-Delta effects of the PSBC
specimens under lateral displacements.

Fig. 4. Test setup: (a) photograph; (b) schematic of the axial loading apparatus.

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Loading protocols
Lateral cyclic loading was applied in a displacement control mode. The loading protocol
is shown in Fig. 5. In this figure, the drift ratio  is defined as the horizontal displacement
D at the lateral loading point divided by the specimen shear span L, 3200 mm. The first two
lateral load reversals consisted of one cycle at   0.125% and 0.25%, respectively.
Subsequent drift ratio levels started from   0.5% to   5.5% at an interval of 0.5%, and
two repetitive cycles were performed at each level. Thus, the largest drift ratio imposed on
the specimens was 5.5%, corresponding to a lateral displacement of 176mm which
approximates to the stroke limit of the MTS actuator. It should be noted that the maximum
expected drift response of a bridge column under earthquake excitations should be less than
4.5%, since drifts beyond that level will cause damage in other structural or non-structural
elements of the bridge (Priestley et al. 2007; ElGawady and Dawood 2012). Hence, the
largest loading drift ratio of 5.5% should be sufficient to investigate the seismic performance
of the FSR-PSBCs.

Fig. 5. Lateral loading protocols.

Instrumentations
The layout of instrumentation for the tested specimens is shown in Fig. 6. As depicted in
this figure, two linear voltage displacement transducers (LVDTs), labeled as LVDT1 and
LVDT2, were horizontally mounted on the specimen to measure the displacement at the
lateral loading point and the possible slippage of the footing, respectively. Accordingly, the
actual displacement of the specimen equals to LVDT1 minus LVDT2. Meanwhile, the
corresponding lateral resisting force was measured by the inbuilt loading cell of the MTS
actuator. In addition, as shown in Fig. 6, another six LVDTs were vertically mounted on the

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lowest two column segments. These LVDTs were mainly used to measure the opening and
closing behavior of the bottommost two segment joints, namely Joint1 and Joint2 in Fig. 6.
As shown in Fig. 6, electrical strain gauges were attached on four out of ten longitudinal
bars to measure the strain response. For each bar, one gauge was placed at the column-footing
interface, while another two were 100 mm above and below the first one, respectively. The
strain gauges attached in the anchorage zones of the ED and FRP bars were used to verify
that strain penetration effects exist in the SR- and FSR-PSBCs.

Fig. 6. Layout of instrumentation for tested specimens.

4. Seismic test results and discussions

Damage progression
No visible damage was observed until the drift ratio reached 0.5%, at which flexural
cracks initially developed in the specimens. As the drift increased, more cracks formed along
the height of the columns and the cracks gradually propagated to the vicinity of the neutral
axes. The distributions of the cracks for the specimens after tests are illustrated in Fig. 7. As
depicted in this figure, all the cracks were located in the lower three segments of the
specimens and were generally horizontal. This result revealed that the shear effects on the

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cyclic behavior of all four specimens were insignificant, which was due principally to the fact
that the specimens had relatively large shear span ratios of 8. As pointed out by Bu et al.
(2012), shear deformations can be neglected in design procedures of the PSBCs with shear
span ratios larger than 5. In addition, the first spalling of surface concrete was observed for
specimen ED1N1, BFRP1N1 and BFRP2N1 as the drift ratios reached 3.0%, 4.0% and 4.5%,
respectively. It can be found that the cover spalling was delayed due to the increment in the
FRP reinforcement ratio  FRP . The primary reason for this result is that the FRP bars
remained effective in resisting compression after the yielding of ED bars, which mitigated the
increase of the compressive stress of the concrete. Studies on cyclic behavior of FRP
reinforced columns conducted by Tavassoli et al. (2015) also demonstrated that the
longitudinal FRP bars were effective in resisting the compression. At the ending of tests of

Fig. 7. Crack distributions and concrete cover spalling of specimens after tests: (a) ED1N1;
(b) BFRP1N1; (c) BFRP2N1; (d) BFRP2N2.
Note: (1) the “N”, “W”, “S” and “E” indicate the four sides of the specimen; (2) the curved lines show the
concrete cracks; and (3) the shaded areas represent the concrete cover spalling.

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the first three PSBC specimens (with gravity load ratios of nG  0.1 ), regions where the
concrete cover spalled off are indicated in shaded areas in Fig. 7 (a)-(c). As shown in this
figure, the heights of spalling regions were approximately 125 mm. In addition, for specimen
BFRP2N1 as shown in Fig. 7(c), the spalling in the south side was more severe than that of
the north side. Such unsymmetrical damage is because the concrete cover at the south side of
the column end was slightly damaged by accident before the test. Furthermore, for the fourth
specimen BFRP2N2 of which nG  0.2 , the initiation of concrete cover spalling was at a
comparatively small drift ratio of 2.0%, and the height of spalling region was 200 mm as
shown in Fig. 7(d). Therefore, the amount of damage to the concrete of BFRP2N2 was
slightly larger than those of the first three specimens, owing to its greater gravity load ratio.
In summary, all four specimens suffered insignificant damages in the concrete cover after
they underwent 24 cycles of lateral displacements and were loaded up to a drift ratio of 5.5%.
In addition, for all the specimens, slid between two adjacent segments was not observed
during the tests. Similar results were found in experimental investigations conducted by Bu et
al. (2016) and Ou et al. (2010a; 2010b). Such a result is due to the fact that the shear
resistance at the segment joint is larger than the lateral strength of the PSBC specimen.
In order to further inspect the damages of the ED and BFRP bars, the steel corrugated
pipes of the four specimens were cut after tests and the infilled grout was removed. Fig. 8 (a)
and (b) present the condition of the ED and BFRP bars, respectively. It was found that the ED
bars suffered very little buckling, which can be attributed to the confinement provided by the
steel corrugated pipes and the surrounding high-strength grout. Furthermore, the inspection
results also revealed that there was almost no damage to the BFRP bars for all the specimens,
as evident in Fig. 8(b).

Fig. 8. Conditions of longitudinal reinforcement after tests: (a) ED bars; (b) BFRP bars.

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The above observations demonstrate that visual damages of tested specimens occurred
in the concrete cover only, while neither the ED nor the FRP bars suffered buckling or
fracture failure during the tests up to drift ratios of 5.5%. This result was of significant
practical implications as it suggests that: (1) the post-earthquake repairing of such
FSR-PSBCs will be rapid or feasible at least, which is important to the seismic resilience of
the disaster area (Decò et al. 2013); and (2) although the FRP bars have usually been
employed as tensile reinforcement in flexural members, they can also be employed in
compression members and will maintain their integrity and functions even after major
earthquakes.
Segment joint opening and strain penetration
Besides the damage to the concrete cover, repetitive opening and closing of the segment
joints was also observed during the tests. Fig. 9(a) shows the opening states of the
column-footing joint (noted as “Joint1” in Fig. 1) of a specimen. For all the tested PSBCs in
this study, observable openings occurred at Joint1 only, while the opening of the
segment1-segment2 joint (noted as “Joint2” in Fig. 1) was negligible and the other joints did
not open. The maximum opening widths at Joint1 of specimens ED1N1, BFRP1N1,
BFRP2N1 and BFRP2N2 were 15 mm, 12 mm, 10 mm, and 9 mm, respectively, as measured
by the vertical LVDTs.

Fig. 9. Deformations at the column-footing joint: (a) joint opening; (b) strain responses of
BFRP bars.

Strain response of the longitudinal bars in the vicinity of Joint1 was further analyzed.
The strain records of specimen BFRP1N1 are illustrated in Fig. 9(b) as representative results
in accordance with the following notation. UP100, UP0 and DOWN100 were the three strain
gauges attached to the same BFRP bar and located at points A, B and C, respectively, in Fig.
6. In other words, UP100 and DOWN100 were located at 100 mm above and below the

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footing top, respectively, while UP0 was positioned at the column-footing interface. As
shown in Fig. 9(b), the strain result of UP0 was larger than that of UP100 at a certain
displacement level. Moreover, it is important to note that the tensile strain of DOWN100 was
not negligible. For example, at a displacement level of 144 mm, the maximum tensile strain
of DOWN100 equaled to 70% of that of UP0. Similar results were also observed for other
specimens. The above phenomenon was due to the strain penetration effects: the tensile
strains in longitudinal bars reached peak values at the column-footing interface and further
penetrated into the anchorage zones of these bars. Integrating the tensile strain along the
embedded longitudinal bar can give the total slip displacement. Obviously, such slip will
increase the opening width of Joint1 and the column end rotation angle as well. It has been
reported that for columns with fully anchored longitudinal bars, the fixed-end rotation that
results from the strain penetration effects will account for 15-35% of the total column tip
displacements (Lehman and Moehle 2000; Dai et al. 2012; Teng et al. 2015). Therefore, it
can be concluded that for FSR- or SR-PSBC members, strain penetration effects should be
considered in finite element models in order to predict the column responses accurately.
Hysteretic curves
Fig. 10 presents the lateral load versus displacement/drift ratio hysteretic responses of
the tested specimens. The initiation of concrete cover spalling for each specimen is also
indicated in this figure at the corresponding drift ratios. As shown in Fig. 10(a), the SR-PSBC
specimen ED1N1 exhibited wide hysteretic curves accompanied by large residual
displacement. This result is as expected since the SR-PSBC tends to behave like a
conventional monolithic column with the increase in the ED bar ratio (Ou 2007). Apparent
degradation in lateral resistance of specimen ED1N1 was observed at the drift ratio of 3.0%,
which was triggered by the spalling of the concrete cover on both sides of the column end.
As compared to ED1N1, the FSR-PSBC specimens BFRP1N1 and BFRP2N1 exhibited
similar peak lateral loads, but more gradual degradation in lateral strengths and much smaller
residual drifts, as indicated in Fig. 10(b) and (c). Furthermore, the concrete spalling did not
produce an accelerated decline in the load carrying capacities of these two specimens. At the
drift ratio level of 5.5%, the lateral loads of BFRP1N1 and BFRP2N1 were still larger than
90% of their respective peak loads. Note that tests of these two specimens had to be stopped
when the stroke limit of the MTS actuator was almost reached. Therefore, the above
comparisons indicated that improvements in displacement ductility and self-centering
capacity of the PSBC were achieved through the partial replacement of ED bars with BFRP
bars. In addition, for BFRP2N1 as shown in Fig. 10(c), the residual displacements in the

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negative (pull) direction were evidently larger than those in the positive (push) direction,
which was most likely due to the aforesaid unsymmetrical concrete damage of this specimen.
The influence of gravity ratio can be determined from inspection of the hysteretic
behaviors arising from specimens BFRP2N2 and BFRP2N1. As indicated in Fig. 10(d), the
most notable characteristic of the cyclic loops of BFRP2N2 was the rapid degradation of
lateral strength, which was initiated by the concrete spalling at a drift of 2.0%. At the last drift
level of 5.5%, the lateral strength of BFRP2N2 had dropped to about 70% of its peak load. In
addition, the unloading path of BFRP2N2 differed evidently from that of BFRP2N1.

Fig. 10. Hysteretic curves: (a) ED1N1; (b) BFRP1N1; (c) BFRP2N1; (d) BFRP2N2.

Residual drift ratios

The residual drift ratio, denoted as  r , is defined as the ratio of the residual

displacement to the shear span of the specimen of 3200 mm. The  r of the tested specimens
can be obtained directly from the preceding hysteretic curves. For the drift magnitude at
which two cycles were conducted, only the  r corresponding to the first cycle was
calculated. The residual drift ratios of the four tested specimens are plotted against the

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loading drift ratios  in Fig. 11(a), while Fig. 11(b) illustrates the normalized residual drifts
of the first three specimens (with the same gravity load ratio of 0.1). Here, the normalized
residual drift is defined as the ratio of the  r of a certain specimen to the  r of the
reference specimen ED1N1. Two parts of discussions regarding the residual drifts were
presented as follows.

Fig. 11. Residual drift ratios: (a) r vs.  curves; (b) normalized residual drifts.

Firstly, the effects of partial replacement of ED bars with BFRP bars on the residual
drifts were revealed by comparison of the results of ED1N1, BFRP1N1 and BFRP2N1. As
indicated in Fig. 11(a), all three specimens preserved minimal residual drifts upon unloading
when the drift ratio   2.0% , exhibiting excellent self-centering capacities. After that, their
residual drifts started to increase rapidly with the drift ratio, which resulted from the
increasing inelastic deformation in ED bars and concrete. At this stage, the FSR-PSBC
specimens showed much smaller residual drifts than the SR-PSBC specimen. For example, as
clearly indicated in Fig. 11(b), the residual drifts of BFRP1N1 and BFRP2N1 at the last drift
level of 5.5% decreased by 26% and 38%, respectively, as compared to the reference
specimen ED1N1. In addition, the residual drifts of BFRP2N1 were less than 50% of those
for ED1N1 from a drift ratio of 2.5% to 4.5%. Moreover, Fig. 11 also shows that at a certain
drift ratio, the residual drifts of these three specimens decreased substantially with the
increase of the BFRP reinforcement ratio  FRP . According to Japanese Design Specifications
of Highway Bridges (JRA 2012), the residual drift ratio of a bridge column should be no
larger than 1.0% to make sure the column can be repaired. As shown in Fig. 11(a), specimens
ED1N1, BFRP1N1 and BFRP2N1 possessed residual drift ratios of 1.0% at lateral drift ratios
of 3.1%, 3.7% and 4.4%, respectively. This result indicates that the FSR-PSBC can be
cyclically loaded to a larger drift ratio than the SR-PSBC while the repairability is maintained.

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The above test results verified that the self-centering capacities of conventional SR-PSBCs
can be appreciably improved by the method of partial replacement of ED bars with BFRP
bars. It should be noted that the BFRP bars might rupture when the FSR-PSBC specimens
were loaded to drift ratios larger than 5.5%, which would compromise the advantage of the
FSR-PSBC in self-centering capability.
Secondly, the effects of the gravity load on the self-centering capacity of the FSR-PSBC
were analyzed. Specimens BFRP2N1 and BFRP2N2 had the same longitudinal reinforcement
but different gravity load ratios nG . As shown in Fig. 11(a), these two specimens produced

similar residual drifts while the loading drift   2.5% , beyond which the  r of BFRP2N2
were apparently greater than those of BFRP2N1. Furthermore, the residual drifts of these two
specimens differed increasingly as the drift ratio  increased. For example, the  r of
BFRP2N2 at drifts of 3.0% and 5.5% were 53% and 108%, respectively, larger than those of
BFRP2N1. Such increase in residual drifts of specimen BFRP2N2 was due to the more
severe damage in the concrete and the ED bars, as compared to BFRP2N1. Thus, it can be
concluded that the increase in the gravity load has an adverse influence on the self-centering
capacity of the FSR-PSBC.
Hysteretic energy dissipation
For SR- and FSR-PSBC members, the hysteretic energy was mainly dissipated through
yielding of ED bars and damage of concrete. The seismic demand of a bridge column may
well be excessively high if its hysteretic energy dissipation is low (Sakai and Mahin 2004;
Kim et al. 2015; Guo et al. 2016). Hence, it is important to mitigate the post-earthquake
residual drift of the PSBC without compromising its energy dissipation ability.
A comparison of the hysteretic curves of the SR specimen ED1N1 and the FSR
specimen BFRP2N1 is presented in Fig. 12(a) as representative results. For the sake of clarity,
only the first cycle at each displacement level is plotted in this figure. The presented results
indicate that although the hysteretic curves of BFRP2N1 were much narrower (owing to
smaller residual drifts) than those of ED1N1, the difference between the energy dissipation of
these two specimens was insignificant. This was mainly because the lateral load degradation
of BFRP2N1 was more gradual than that of ED1N1.
Subsequently, the cumulative hysteretic energy dissipation Ed of the four specimens

was further compared. Here, the Ed was calculated by integrating the area enclosed by the
load-displacement hysteretic curves of a specimen. For the displacement magnitude at which

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two cycles were conducted, only the area corresponding to the first cycle was included since
the first and the second cycles were quite similar, as evidenced in Fig. 10. Ed is plotted

against the loading drift ratio  in Fig. 12(b). As clearly shown in this figure, the Ed of
the first three specimens ED1N1, BFRP1N1 and BFRP2N1 were quite similar. As compared
to ED1N1, the Ed corresponding to the last drift level of 5.5% of BFRP1N1 and BFRP2N1
decreased by merely 11% and 10%, respectively. Furthermore, the specimen BFRP2N1
generally dissipated the same energy as BFRP1N1 throughout the test, although the former
had less ED bars than the latter. Therefore, the above results indicated that by partially
replacing ED bars with BFRP bars, the energy dissipation ability of a PSBC degraded only
marginally. In addition, as illustrated in Fig. 12(b), specimen BFRP2N2 consistently
dissipated more energy than BFRP2N1 through the testing. At the end of tests, the Ed of
BFRP2N2 was 29% larger than that of BFRP2N1. Such larger hysteretic energy dissipation
of BFRP2N2 was associated with more significant yielding of ED bars and more severe
damage of concrete, which resulted from the larger gravity load ratio of nG  0.2 .

Fig. 12. Energy dissipation abilities: (a) comparison of hysteretic curves; (b) cumulative
energy dissipation.

Envelope curves
Fig. 13(a) shows the average lateral load-drift envelope curves of push and pull
directions. The yield points and peak points of the specimens are also indicated in this figure.
In this study, the equal-energy approach (bilinear approximation) was adopted to determine
the yield points (Park 1989). The yield loads Vy , yield drift ratios  y , peak loads VP and

peak drift ratios  P are summarized in Table 3. The initial lateral stiffness k1 was further
calculated from Eq. (3):

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k1  Vy  y  L  (3)

where L is the shear span of the specimen. Moreover, the bending moments at the cantilever
column ends M were calculated according to Eq.(4) and are plotted against the loading drift
 in Fig. 13(b):

M  V  L  NG  D (4)

where V is the lateral load, N G is the gravity load and D is the imposed lateral displacement.

Also, the maximum moments M max of the tested specimens are provided in Table 3. The
following observations were made based on the results obtained from the envelope curves.

Fig. 13. Envelope curves: (a) lateral load-drift curves; (b) moment-drift curves.

Table 3. Main test results of specimens

y Vy p Vp M max  u Vu
k1 k2 k k3 DIv
Specimen
(%) (kN) (%) (kN) (kN∙m) (%) (%) (kN) (%) (%)

ED1N1 0.8 104 3.0 122 461 29 5.5 101 4.06 0.26 6.4 0.26 17

BFRP1N1 0.9 103 2.8 124 495 27 5.5 114 3.58 0.35 9.8 0.12 8

BFRP2N1 0.9 105 2.5 125 512 26 5.5 119 3.65 0.39 10.7 0.06 5

BFRP2N2 0.7 118 2.0 138 570 46 5.5 96 5.27 0.48 9.1 0.38 30

Note: the units of k1, k2 and k3 are kN/mm.

Firstly, the initial lateral stiffness was compared. As indicated in Table 3, the initial
stiffness k1 of the two FSR specimens BFRP1N1 and BFRP2N1 were both 12% smaller
than that of the SR specimen ED1N1. The reason for this result was that the elastic modulus
of the BFRP bar was smaller than that of the steel ED bar, as shown in Table 2. This result is

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desired because the fundamental frequency of the PSBC decreases with the initial stiffness,
which generally leads to a decreased earthquake force imparted to the bridge structure
(Ibrahim et al. 2015).
Secondly, the load carrying capacities of the tested specimens were investigated. As
indicated in Fig. 13 and Table 3, the peak loads VP of the first three specimens were

essentially identical, while the M max of BFRP1N1 and BFRP2N1 were 7% and 11% larger
than that of ED1N1, respectively. Such increase in the moment carrying capacities of the two
FSR-PSBC specimens mainly arose from the higher tensile strength of the BFRP bars
compared to the ED bars. In addition, the peak load VP and the maximum moment M max
of the fourth specimen BFRP2N2 increased by 10% and 11%, respectively, when compared
to BFRP2N1. This indicated that the load carrying capacity of the FSR-PSBC increased with
the gravity load ratio within some range.
Thirdly, the P-Delta effects were considered. It is worth noting that the V - curves of
all four specimens had descending branches, while the bending moment M generally kept
increasing with the loading drift (except for ED1N1 which had negligible degradation in
bending strength). This noticeable disparity was an indication of the P-Delta effects, which
can be quantified by the stability index  (Priestley et al. 2007) as defined in Eq. (5):

N G  Du
Δ  (5)
Mu

where Du is the largest displacement imposed on the specimen, i.e., 176mm; and M u is

the column end moment corresponding to Du . Evidently,  indicates the proportion of the

bending moment arising from P-Delta effects in the total moment M u . The calculated results

of  are further summarized in Table 3. Generally, the P-Delta effects can be ignored if

  8.5% (Priestley et al. 2007). However, the  of the tested specimens were evidently
larger than the threshold value 8.5%, and as indicated in Table 3, the P-Delta effects
accounted for 26%~46% of the total bending moments for the four specimens. Therefore, the
P-Delta effects had a tremendous influence on the cyclic behavior of PSBC specimens,
especially for specimen BFRP2N2 with a larger gravity load. Accordingly, it is suggested that
both experimental and analytical investigations on the PSBCs should account for the P-Delta
effects accurately since the lateral displacement responses of such piers are often large.

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Post-yield stiffness ratios

The self-centering capacities of bridge structures tend to increase with the post-yield
stiffness ratios of the bridge columns. In this study, the post-yield stiffness k2 is defined as
the slope between the yield point and the peak point on the lateral load-displacement curve,
as illustrated in Fig. 14(a), and can be calculated from Eq. (6):

Vp  Vy
k2  (6)
Dp  Dy

where Dy and Dp are the lateral displacements corresponding to the yield and peak points,

respectively. The post-yield stiffness ratio  k is further defined in Eq. (7):

k2
k   100% (7)
k1

where k1 is the preceding initial stiffness. The calculated results of k2 and  k are
presented in Fig. 14(b) and further summarized in Table 3. By comparing the presented
results of the first three PSBC specimens, it is revealed that both the post-yield stiffness and
the post-yield stiffness ratios were significantly increased by partially replacing ED bars with
BFRP bars. For example, the k2 and  k of the FSR-PSBC specimen BFRP2N1 increased
by 50% and 67%, respectively, as compared to the SR-PSBC specimen ED1N1. In addition,
due to the increase in the gravity load ratio, specimen BFRP2N2 showed larger post-yield
stiffness but smaller post-yield stiffness ratio as compared to BFRP2N1, although these two
specimens had identical reinforcement details.
Fig. 14(c) shows the influences of the post-yield stiffness ratios on the normalized
residual drift. The normalized residual drifts of ED1N1, BFRP1N1 and BFRP2N1 were
plotted in this figure. These three specimens had different post-yield stiffness ratios and the
same gravity load ratios. As indicated in Fig. 14(c), at each drift ratios, the normalized
residual drift decreased evidently with the increase of the post-yield stiffness ratio  k . For

example, at the drift of 4%, when  k increased from 6.4% to 9.8% and 10.7%, the
normalized residual drift decreased from 1.0 to 0.65 and 0.41, respectively. Therefore, as
evidenced by the test results of this study, increasing the post-yield stiffness ratio is an
effective method to decrease the residual drift of a PSBC.

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Fig. 14. Post-yield stiffness: (a) defination; (b) comparison of test results; and (c) the
influences on the residual drift.

Displacement ductility
Usually, the ultimate point of the column load-displacement curve can be defined as the
post-peak point at which the load carrying capacity has undergone a 20% reduction (Park
1989). However, due to the high ductility, the lateral resistance of a PSBC specimen in the
quasi-static test may well be still larger than 80% of the peak load when the MTS actuator
stroke limit is reached. Such was the case for many previous experimental studies on PSBCs
(Wang et al. 2008; ElGawady and Sha'Lan 2011; Bu et al. 2016) and this study as well. In
this paper, therefore, the ultimate point for each tested specimen was taken as the last point
on the load-drift curve, i.e., the ultimate drift ratio  u  5.5% as shown in Table 3.
In order to compare the ductility of the tested specimens, the following two indexes, i.e.,
the load degradation stiffness k3 (as indicated in Fig. 14(a)) and the lateral load damage

index DI v , are defined in Eqs. (8) and (9), respectively (Powell and Allahabadi 1988):

Vp  Vu
k3  (8)
Du  Dp

Vu
DI v  1  (9)
Vp

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where, Du  176mm is the largest displacement imposed on the specimen as stated earlier,

and also referred to as the ultimate displacement herein; while Vu is the lateral load
corresponding to the ultimate point. Apparently, the smaller values of these two indexes
indicate a more ductile behavior and vice versa. The calculated results of k3 and DI v are
presented in Table 3. These results permit the following two parts of observations. (i)
Comparison of k3 for the first three specimens indicates that with the increase of the FRP
reinforcement ratio, the lateral load of the PSBC specimen degraded in a more gradual
manner. Furthermore, the load damage indexes DI v of FSR specimens BFRP1N1 and
BFRP2N1 decreased by 53% and 70%, respectively, as compared to the SR specimen ED1N1.
Hence, the displacement ductility of the FSR-PSBC was significantly improved compared to
the conventional SR-PSBC. (ii) The k3 and DI v of the fourth specimen BFRP2N2 were
6.3 and 6.0, respectively, times those of specimen BFRP2N1. This observation clearly
demonstrates that the increase in gravity load had an adverse impact on the ductility of the
FSR-PSBCs.

5. Conclusions
This paper proposed a novel PSBC system, referred to as the FSR-PSBC, in which both
BFRP bars and conventional steel bars were employed as longitudinal reinforcement.
Quasi-static tests on large-scale specimens were carried out to investigate the seismic
performance of the FSR-PSBCs. The main findings of this experimental study are
summarized in the following points:
(1). After the FSR-PSBC specimens were cyclically loaded up to a drift ratio of 5.5%,
visual damages only developed in the concrete cover and concentrated at the
column base joints, while no ED bar buckling or BFRP bar fracture occurred. The
observed results demonstrated that the FSR-PSBCs will be easily and rapidly
repaired after a strong earthquake shaking.
(2). By partially replacing the ED bars of the conventional SR-PSBC with an equal
amount of BFRP bars, appreciably reduced residual drifts and comparable hysteretic
energy dissipation abilities can be realized. Note that it is important to mitigate the
post-earthquake residual drift of the bridge column without compromising its
energy dissipation ability.
(3). As compared to the SR-PSBC specimen with the same gravity load level, the
FSR-PSBC specimens exhibited considerably enhanced post-yield stiffness ratios

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and displacement ductility, and the moment carrying capacities were moderately
increased as well.
(4). Test results in this paper indicated that, with the increase in the proportion of BFRP
in the total reinforcement of the FSR-PSBC, improvements in the post-yield
stiffness, self-centering capacity and ductility were evident, while the decrease in
cumulative hysteretic energy dissipation was negligible for the FRP reinforcement
ratios considered in this study.
(5). Increasing the gravity load level of the FSR-PSBC contributes to improving the
load-carrying capacity and the hysteretic energy dissipation ability, but has evident
adverse impacts on the self-centering capability and the ductility. Therefore, it is
suggested that the P-Delta effects should be accurately considered in both
experimental and analytical investigations on PSBCs since they have a tremendous
influence on the cyclic behavior of PSBCs.
The test results of this study verified the promising seismic and post-earthquake
performance of FRP-steel reinforced PSBCs. For the FSR-PSBC specimens, however, testing
was stopped when the stroke limit of the MTS actuator was reached. Further experimental
investigations can aim at studying the responses of the FSR-PSBCs under large lateral drift
ratios. Research on design methods is also needed to facilitate the application of such hybrid
reinforced bridge columns in moderate to high seismic zones.

6. Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the financial support received from the National Key
Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2017YFC0703001), the National
Nature Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51478143, 51278150) and the China
Scholarship Council (Grant No. 201606120180). In addition, the authors express their
gratitude to Nanjing Fenghui Composite Material Co., Ltd. for providing BFRP bars for this
experimental program.

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