Interior wide beam connections subjected to lateral earthquake loading

The use of wide beam-column systems has become increasingly popular in low to moderate seismic regions, despite very little information being available on their performance under seismic action. Therefore, this investigation was conducted to determine the behavior and likely failure mode of wide beam connections when subjected to earthquake loading. In this investigation, two interior reinforced concrete wide beam subassemblages and one post-tensioned concrete wide beam subassemblage were tested under quasi-static cyclic loading up to a drift ratio of 3.5%. It was found that the wide beam connection is likely to experience severe torsion cracking in the beam portions located at the sides of the column when subjected to severe earthquake loading. A special detailing strategy was developed to inhibit the torsion cracking and was found to be effective in the subsequent tests. The experimental behavior of the subassemblages is reported in this paper. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.