Modeling seismic performance of high-strength steel–ultra-high-performance concrete piers with modified Kent–Park model using fiber elements

The seismic performance of ultra-high-performance concrete–high-strength steel pier was studied using fiber elements, which are capable to model accurately elastic–plastic behavior of members with fibers of different material constitutive relations. For high-strength steel–ultra-high-performance concrete piers, the modified Kent–Park model was utilized to describe the compressive stress–strain relations of ultra-high-performance concrete and high-strength steel-confined ultra-high-performance concrete, respectively, by determining four key parameters. A finite element model was established to simulate the hysteretic response; conduct parameter analysis including axial load ratio, longitudinal reinforcement ratio, and transverse reinforcement ratio; and assess the maximum ground acceleration capacity based on inelastic response spectra for high-strength steel–ultra-high-performance concrete piers. The conclusions are summarized that modified Kent–Park model is proved to be effective due to experimental data. The calculated hysteretic curves of high-strength steel–ultra-high-performance concrete piers show good agreement with the experimental results. Three parameters have evident effects on seismic performance of high-strength steel–ultra-high-performance concrete piers, which indicates that various seismic demands can be achieved by reasonable parameter settings. Compared to nonlinear dynamic analysis based on finite element model, the results provided by inelastic response spectra are less conservative for short high-strength steel–ultra-high-performance concrete piers under high axial load ratio.