Seismic performance of deteriorated concrete bridges: bonding failure effects

Nowadays, the seismic study of corroded reinforced concrete elements is a matter of increasing con-cern, in particular as regards links such as bridges in infrastructural networks. As the first step in an ongoing research, a reinforced concrete bridge overpass (one central pier between the bents) was selected on which to perform response spectrum seismic analyses. This was based on the development of a finite element model of the structure and allowed the assessment of the degrading seismic capacity of the reinforced concrete bridge pier at different periods caused by general and pitting corrosion. For this purpose, models from existing literature were used. An unchecked factor of the previous study is that corrosion can also affect bonding, thus increasingly reducing ductility and safety performance. However, in a corroded structure bond strength and confine-ment capacity can also decrease due to the transverse reinforcement area loss, and concrete cover crack-ing and spalling. The new step developed in this work focuses on the bonding failure effects in bridge corrosion pro-cesses and the preliminary results are herein presented.