The Behavior of Special Moment Frames with High-Strength Reinforcement Subjected to Cyclic Loading

What is it about?

High-strength reinforcement (HSR) application has many advantages, such as decreasing expenditures and construction time, and improving construction quality. However, its application has been limited in special moment frames by several building codes. This limitation is due to some challenges related to a possible reduction in overall ductility and serviceability of reinforced concrete (RC) structures. In this research, the effects of HSR application on the stiffness, drifts, energy dissipation, ductility, cracking patterns, and damage indices of four special moment frames are experimentally investigated. These special moment frames have the same geometry and equivalent amounts of reinforcement (with yield strengths of 500 and 580 MPa). The frames are tested under cyclic loading. Results indicate that all the frames achieved drift ratios exceeding 4% before they showed a critical decline in their lateral strength. Moreover, replacing the grade 500 MPa reinforcement with reduced amounts of the grade 580 MPa reinforcement led to a comparable deformation capacity. Experimental observations also showed that by using higher-strength reinforcement, the cracking patterns changed: the higher the yield strength, the wider and deeper the cracks.

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Photo by Christopher Czermak on Unsplash

Photo by Christopher Czermak on Unsplash

Why is it important?

In this study, we tried to investigate the effects of high-strength steel (HSS) bars on the seismic responses of special moment frames subjected to cyclical loading such as displacement ductility, energy absorption, damage indices, and so on. The results were interesting....

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