DUCTILITY AND MOMENT REDISTRIBUTION IN REINFORCED CONCRETE BEAMS.

The paper discusses the relevance of ductility on the moment redistribution capacity of reinforced concrete beams. The parameters which reflect the ductility are identified both from a theoretical point of view and in terms of the stipulations in recent codes of practice. The plastic rotation capacities of a wide range of sections and material strengths are evaluated by calculating the moment-curvature relationships over the complete range of non-elastic behavior. Comparisons are made with the ductility requirements of two codes and the proposals for calculating the ultimate moment capacity and neutral axis depths.