Seismic Behavior of Reinforced Concrete Exterior Wide Beam-Column Joints

An experimental and numerical investigation carried out on RC wide beam-column joints when subjected to seismic loads is reported within this paper. The experimental study was conducted by subjecting three full-scale wide exterior beam-column specimens to simulated seismic loads at the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore. Simulations of earthquake loadings were applied on to the specimens via quasistatic load reversals. Seismic performance analysis of the joints were based on the results obtained from the experiment in terms of their general behavior, hysteresis response, and the strain profiles of the longitudinal reinforcement within the specimens. These experimental results were then used to validate a three-dimensional (3D) nonlinear finite-element (FE) model. The behavior of the joints under the influence of critical influencing factors like column axial load, transverse beam, and beam bar anchorage ratio were also analyzed through the parametric studies carried out.