Abstract

Nonlinear finite-element model updating (FEMU) is a promising approach for post-event damage assessment of civil structures. This paper conducted FEMU for a full-scale reinforced concrete bridge column tested under a sequence of earthquakes and examined the evolution of seismic damage across different earthquake ground motions. It was found that using experimental data, FEMU can be applied to identify unknown key model parameters (e.g. bond-slip and core concrete parameters) and damage of the columns as represented by the change of the key parameters. In addition, the updated models demonstrated their ability to better predict the system response for future earthquakes.