Retrofit for Control and Repairability of Damage

Collapse or severe damage of a large number of bridges in recent earthquakes in California and Japan has emphasized the need to develop a suitable retrofitting technique for enhancing the flexural ductility and shear resistance of existing bridge columns. However, most retrofit techniques currently in vogue are essentially one‐time fixes that do not address the issue of repairability following a seismic event. This paper reports the results of a research program investigating the performance of reinforced concrete bridge columns where the main objective is to control damage and ensure fast rehabilitation with minimum disruption to the traffic flow. Thus a retrofit for control and repairability of damage ( Re CARD) philosophy is developed and validated through experiments on near full‐size bridge columns.