A SUMMARY OF RESULTS OF SIMULATED SEISMIC LOAD TESTS ON REINFORCED CONCRETE BEAM-COLUMN JOINTS,BEAMS AND COLUMNS WITH SUBSTANDARD REINFORCING DETAILS

The results of some simulated seismic load tests on reinforced concrete one-way interior and exterior beam-column joints with substandard reinforcing details typical of buildings constructed in New Zealand before the 1970s are described. The tests were conducted using both deformed and plain round longitudinal reinforcement. The interior beam-column joint cores lacked transverse reinforcement and the longitudinal bars passing through the joint core were poorly anchored. The exterior beam-column joint units contained very little transverse reinforcement in the members and in the joint core. In one exterior beam-column joint unit the beam bar hooks were not bent into the joint core. That is, the hooks at the ends of the top bars were bent up and the hooks at the ends of the bottom bars were bent down. This anchorage detail was common in many older buildings constructed before the 1970s. In the other exterior beam-column joint unit the hooks at the ends of the bars were bent into the joint core as in current practice. The improvement in performance of the joint with beam bars anchored according to current practice is demonstrated. In addition, tests were conducted on interior joints with lap splices in the beam longitudinal reinforcement bars near the column face. The tests were conducted using both deformed and plain round longitudinal reinforcement. Tests were also conducted on columns with plain round bar longitudinal reinforcement and inadequate transverse reinforcement.

The reinforcing details were close to identical to those in an existing seven storey reinforced concrete building that was designed and built in New Zealand in the late 1950s.

The test results give an indication of the performance of beam-column joints and members with the above now out-of-date reinforcing details.

The test results reported are a summary of results reported in a number of publications written since 1994.     

THE γ-FUNCTION PSEUDODYNAMIC ALGORITHM

Practical applications of the γ-function dissipative explicit method to pseudodynamic tests are thoroughly investigated herein. Detailed implementation of this pseudodynamic algorithm is schematically sketched. Numerical experiments and verification tests strongly indicate that the γ-function dissipative explicit method can effectively filter out the spurious participation of high frequency responses while the lower mode responses can be obtained very accurately. In addition, error propagation analysis also shows that the γ-function dissipative explicit method possesses much better error propagation characteristics when compared to the Newmark explicit method. Thus, this pseudodynamic algorithm is very suitable for the test system where the responses are dominated by the low frequency modes and the high frequency responses are of no interest.     

SEISMIC DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF A KNEE BRACED FRAME BUILDING

A five-storey steel frame incorporating dissipative knee elements is designed using the Eurocode 8 pushover analysis method. The non-linear analysis makes use of a novel knee element model capable of accurately simulating the bending and shear behaviour observed in full-scale tests. The performance of the structure is assessed using non-linear time-history analysis. This shows that the knee elements can be designed to yield under small earthquakes or early in a strong one (maximising their energy dissipation) while still being able to withstand a large event without collapse. Knee elements thus have the potential to give excellent seismic performance in steel framed structures. The time history analysis results are compared to those obtained with the three different pushover analysis methods (Eurocode 8, FEMA 356 and ATC 40). The FEMA 356 method, which includes a more accurate representation of the structure's significant post-yield stiffness, gave the closest agreement with the time history analyses, while the Eurocode 8 method gave rather conservative results and the ATC 40 method appears non-conservative for this type of structure.