Seismic isolation technology for prestressed segmental precast piers

Prestressed segmental precast (PC) piers, with insufficient energy dissipation capacity, are seldomly adopted on bridges in seismic areas. To improve the seismic performance of PC piers, this study proposes a functional separation seismic isolation device (FSID), serving as a supplementary replaceable energy dissipation device. Full-scale field load tests on a real-world PC pier were carried out to qualify the seismic performance of this type of piers. Based on the results of tests and supplementary numerical analysis, an optimal design of the FSID was achieved. The numerical results show that the FSID has multi-stage statuses and reaction models. By optimizing the design parameters, FSID can enable the PC piers to satisfy the required seismic performance under various levels of earthquakes. Therefore, the performance-based seismic design of PC piers can be achieved using the FSID.