Drift capacity of reinforced concrete columns with light transverse reinforcement

Existing reinforced concrete columns with light transverse reinforcement are vulnerable to shear failure during seismic response. Shear strength models, modeling the degradation of shear strength with increasing displacement ductility demand, have been widely used to evaluate the interstory drift capacity of such columns. The application of a shear strength model to determine the drift capacities for a database of 50 shear-critical columns demonstrates significant inaccuracies with such a method. An empirical drift capacity model based on the shear-critical column database provides a better estimate of the interstory drift at shear failure. The new drift capacity model identifies the most critical parameters affecting the drift capacity of shear-critical columns, namely, transverse reinforcement ratio, shear stress demand, and axial load ratio.