The Research Initiation Award entitled - High-Performance Green Bridges - has the goal to formulate a rating system for the design and construction of high-performance green bridges with particular emphasis on the development of a new generation of seismic-resistant bridge columns using composite materials as internal reinforcement. The research objectives are: to define the criteria for a high-performance green bridge through the creation of a rating system to develop sustainable design and construction certification levels of new bridges; to design a structurally admissible and seismically resistant bridge column comprised of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) bars as the internal reinforcement and energy devices to help minimize residual displacements; and to prove through experimental testing and analytical modeling validation that the structural behavior of a new class of bridge columns can be carefully engineered and designed with FRP bars and energy devices to resist moderate-to-strong earthquake ground motions. The education objectives are: to establish a modern Green Transportation Infrastructure Center at Morgan State University; to attract, recruit, train, and mentor undergraduate students in areas of advanced structural analysis and design topics; and to disseminate the results in scholarly publications and conference papers.
The results of the project will lead to the development of the next generation of sustainable, high-performance bridges with options for the implementation of seismically-resistant bridge columns and their connections that consist of externally unbonded FRP bars to aid with self-centering during an earthquake, internally bonded FRP bars to provide sufficient deformability, and energy devices to absorb energy from the earthquake. The externally unbonded FRP bars are expected to remain elastic during an earthquake for "controlled rocking," which is appropriate for FRP bars that exhibit high tensile strength and non-ductile behavior with strains in the range of 1-3%.
