Enhancing seismic performance of unbonded prestressed concrete bridge column using superelastic shape memory alloy

In this article, an application of superelastic shape memory alloy strands for improving the seismic performance of unbonded prestressed reinforced concrete bridge column is proposed. In the reinforced concrete column with unbonded prestressing steel-shape memory alloy strands, superelastic shape memory alloy strands are put in series with unbonded steel strands, and the loading plateau of shape memory alloy is exploited to limit the increase in the axial load of column under an earthquake. Quasi-static analysis and seismic analysis were conducted to compare the seismic performance of conventional reinforced concrete column, reinforced concrete column with unbonded prestressing steel strands, and the proposed reinforced concrete column with unbonded prestressing steel-shape memory alloy strands. Result shows that reinforced concrete column with unbonded prestressing steel-shape memory alloy strands has larger ultimate displacement capacity than reinforced concrete column with unbonded prestressing steel strands in the quasi-static analysis. In the seismic analysis, reinforced concrete column with unbonded prestressing steel-shape memory alloy strands suffers from smaller earthquake residual displacement than reinforced concrete column and reinforced concrete column with unbonded prestressing steel strands. Furthermore, parametric analysis was carried out to investigate the effects of unbonded steel strand ratio, prestressing force ratio, bonded longitudinal reinforcement ratio, and maximum tensile force ratio (area of shape memory alloy strands) on the ultimate displacement and quasi-static residual displacement of reinforced concrete column with unbonded prestressing steel-shape memory alloy strands. Results show that increasing the prestressing force ratio and the maximum tensile force ratio within certain ranges can improve the self-centering capability of column. Increasing the area of bonded longitudinal reinforcement and unbonded steel strand ratio results in larger residual displacement.