FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF EXTERNAL RC WIDE BEAM-COLUMN JOINTS PROVIDED WITH DIFFERENT DETAILING SOLUTIONS

Abstract eng:
Wide beams are part of the residential buildings’ construction habits in Italy as well as in other Mediterranean countries. In fact, undoubted advantages are provided by this type of beams with respect to architectural functionality and time-saving in formwork installation. However, in the design process of new RC buildings, some penalties in terms of ductility are prescribed in seismic codes when this type of beam is used. Previous studies demonstrated that the detailing of beam reinforcement can influence the response of external wide beam-column connections, especially for what concern the reinforcing bars bent outside the column width. In order to investigate the influence of this aspect on the global performance of external wide beam-column joints, the authors calibrated detailed finite element models based on the experimental results of cyclic tests carried out on two full-scale specimens. Beyond the detection of the main phenomena characterizing the subassemblages’ behavior, a parametric analysis has been performed to evaluate the influence of reinforcement amounts placed inside and outside the column core. Particularly, three values of the beam reinforcement area have been considered either placed inside or outside the column core, and the corresponding global lateral response curves of the beam-column joint have been obtained. It has been observed that in the cases where the additional amount of longitudinal reinforcement in the beam was placed inside the column core, both a more ductile behavior and a higher strength of the connection were obtained. This finding suggests that slip phenomena and torsion cracking occurred in the non-confined zone outside the column core, accounted for by the numerical model, can heavily influence the seismic behavior of this kind of beam-column joints even though they are seismically designed.

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