Behavior of reinforced concrete interior wide beam-column connections under lateral loading: A finite element study

Abstract

A Finite Element model was developed to quantitatively investigate the effect of the geometric parameters on the behavior of the RC wide beam-column connection. This model, with a high accuracy, was verified by the experimental test conducted by previous researcher. Force-displacement curves were produced for wide beam-column connections with different geometric parameters. The impact of the geometry of the wide beam on the mechanical properties, types and patterns of the cracks, length of the Plastic hinge through the steel reinforcements and plastic dissipation energy of the joint was investigated. Length of the plastic hinge was computed for all samples and it was understood that increasing the width and height of the beam caused the plastic hinge length to be reduced. For instance by 67 percent increase of the width of the beam, the plastic hinge length was decreased by 6.5 percent. Stress analysis of the FE model showed that tensile stress through the beam axis, compressive stress through the column axis and shear stresses are responsible for initiation of flexural cracks through the beams, narrow flexural cracks though the column and Inclined cracks, respectively. Increasing of the beam width had different influences on resistance of the structure against different types of the cracks. Changing the dimension of the beam, in wide beam-column connections, had a significant impact on the plastic dissipation energy capacity of the structure. For a determined value of the lateral force, structures with the shorter beam width had higher values of the plastic dissipation energy.