Keywords: Blast performance. Concrete filled steel tube (CFST) columns. Multihazard assessments. Bridges. Piers. Structural collapse. Seismically-resistant designs. Blast loads. Terrorism. Blast designs.
Abstract: The research objective is to present the development and experimental validation of a multi-hazard bridge pier concept, i.e. a bridge pier system capable of providing an adequate level of protection against collapse under both seismic and blast loading. A multi-column pier-bent with concrete-filled steel tube (CFST) columns is the proposed concept. The work experimentally investigates the adequacy of such a system under blast loading. The report describes development of the multi-hazard pier concept, design of the prototype bridge pier under blast and seismic loading, specimen design, experimental set-up, and experimental results. Additionally, blast experiment results are compared with results from simplified method of analysis considering an equivalent SDOF system having an elastic-perfectly-plastic behavior. Results find that prototype bridge CFST columns can be designed to provide satisfactory seismic performance and adequate blast resistance. Also shown is that the CFST columns exhibited a ductile behavior under blast load in a series of ¼ scale tests.