Cyclic Displacement Model for Reinforced Concrete Columns

Reinforced concrete (RC) structures in low to moderate seismic regions and many older RC structures in high seismic regions include columns with steel reinforcement details not meeting the requirements of modern seismic design codes. These columns typically fail in shear or in a brittle manner and their behavior must be accurately captured when RC structures are modeled and analyzed. The total lateral displacement of a low ductility or shear critical RC column can be represented as the sum of three displacement components: (1) flexural displacement, (2) displacement due to slippage of the reinforcing bars at column ends, and (3) shear displacement. In this study, these three displacement components are separately modeled and then combined together following a proposed procedure based on the expected overall behavior of the column and its failure mechanism. A simplified slip model is proposed. The main objective of this research is to develop an easy-to-apply method to model and capture the cyclic behavior of RC columns considering the shear failure mechanism. The proposed model is validated using the available data from RC column and frame experiments.