• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.97-100
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• 2008

Subjected to seismic action causing large deformation of bridge columns, the plastic hinge region is commonly formed in the column end zone. The deformation capacity of a concrete column can be expressed by using plastic hinge length. The mechanical properties of high-strength reinforcing steel is different from that of normal-strength steel and the mechanical properties of steel will influence the plastic hinge formation. Therefore, in other to accurately predict the deformation of concrete column using high-strength steel, the plastic hinge length can be expressed as a function of the mechanical properties of steel such as the tensile to yield strength ratio and the strain at ultimate state. However, little research has been conducted into the effect of mechanical properties of steel on the plastic hinge length. It was difficult to measure the plastic hinge length from the test results. Therefore, the plastic hinge length of concrete columns was investigated from the curvature profile. A numerical approach was used to study the effect of various parameters on plastic hinge length. Based on the results of the numerical parametric study, a new expression for plastic hinge length was proposed.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.173-187
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• 2018

Performance evaluation of RC frame building by nonlinear static pushover analysis that accounts for elastic and post elastic behavior is becoming very popular as a valid decision making tool in seismic hazard resistant designs. Available literature suggests great amount of interest has shown by researchers in suggesting refinements to geometric and material modelling to bridge the gap between analytical predictions and observed performances. Notwithstanding the attempts gaps still exists. Sequence of plastic hinge formation which has great influence on pushover analysis results is an area less investigated. This paper attempts to highlight the importance of hinge sequence considerations to make analysis results more meaningful. Variation in analysis results due to different hinge sequences have been quantified, compared and bounds on analysis results have been presented.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.5 no.6
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• pp.679-702
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• 2013

During an earthquake, soils filter and send out the shaking to the building and simultaneously it has the role of bearing the building vibrations and transmitting them back to the ground. In other words, the ground and the building interact with each other. Hence, soil-structure interaction (SSI) is a key parameter that affects the performance of buildings during the earthquakes and is worth to be taken into consideration. Columns are one of the most crucial elements in RC buildings that play an important role in stability of the building and must be able to dissipate energy under seismic loads. Recent earthquakes showed that formation of plastic hinges in columns is still possible as a result of strong ground motion, despite the application of strong column-weak beam concept, as recommended by various design codes. Energy is dissipated through the plastic deformation of specific zones at the end of a member without affecting the rest of the structure. The formation of a plastic hinge in an RC column in regions that experience inelastic actions depends on the column details as well as soil-structure interaction (SSI). In this paper, 854 different scenarios have been analyzed by inelastic time-history analyses to predict the nonlinear behavior of RC columns considering soil-structure interaction (SSI). The effects of axial load, height over depth ratio, main period of soil and structure as well as different characteristics of earthquakes, are evaluated analytically by finite element methods and the results are compared with corresponding experimental data. Findings from this study provide a simple expression to estimate plastic hinge length of RC columns including soil-structure interaction.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.63 no.5
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• pp.669-681
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• 2017

The design of reinforced concrete buildings must satisfy the serviceability stiffness criteria in terms of maximum lateral deflections and inter story drift in order to prevent both structural and non-structural damages. Consideration of plastic hinge formation is also important to obtain accurate failure mechanism and ultimate strength of reinforced concrete frames. In the present study, an iterative procedure has been developed for the analysis of reinforced concrete frames with cracked elements and consideration of plastic hinge formation. The ACI and probability-based effective stiffness models are used for the effective moment of inertia of cracked members. Shear deformation effect is also considered, and the variation of shear stiffness due to cracking is evaluated by reduced shear stiffness models available in the literature. The analytical procedure has been demonstrated through the application to three reinforced concrete frame examples available in the literature. It has been shown that the iterative analytical procedure can provide accurate and efficient predictions of deflections and ultimate strength of the frames studied under lateral and vertical loads. The proposed procedure is also efficient from the viewpoint of computational time and convergence rate. The developed technique was able to accurately predict the locations and sequential development of plastic hinges in frames. The results also show that shear deformation can contribute significantly to frame deflections.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.823-840
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• 2016

The plastic hinge lengths of beams and columns are a critical demand parameter in the nonlinear analysis of structures using the finite element method. The numerical model of a plastic hinge plays an important role in evaluating the response and damage of a structure to earthquakes or other loads causing the formation of plastic hinges. Previous research demonstrates that the plastic hinge length of reinforced concrete (RC) columns is closely related to section size, reinforcement ratio, reinforcement strength, concrete strength, axial compression ratio, and so on. However, because of the limitations of testing facilities, there is a lack of experimental data on columns with large section sizes and high axial compression ratios. In this work, we conducted a series of quasi-static tests for columns with large section sizes (up to 700 mm) and high axial compression ratios (up to 0.6) to explore the propagation of plastic hinge length during the whole loading process. The experimental results show that besides these parameters mentioned in previous work, the plastic hinge of RC columns is also affected by loading amplitude and size effect. Therefore, an approach toward considering the effect of these two parameters is discussed in this work.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.327-335
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• 2017

To gain more knowledge of aluminum foam sandwich structure and promote the engineering application, aluminum foam sandwich consisting of 7050 matrix aluminum foam core and 304 stainless steel face-sheets was studied under three-point bending by WDW-T100 electronic universal tensile testing machine in this work. Results showed that when aluminum foam core was reinforced by 304 steel face-sheets, its load carrying capacity improved dramatically. The maximum load of AFS in three-point bending increased with the foam core density or face-sheet thickness monotonically. And also when foam core was reinforced by 304 steel panels, the energy absorption ability of foam came into play effectively. There was a clear plastic platform in the load-displacement curve of AFS in three-point bending. No crack of 304 steel happened in the present tests. Two collapse modes appeared, mode A comprised plastic hinge formation at the mid-span of the sandwich beam, with shear yielding of the core. Mode B consisted of plastic hinge formation both at mid-span and at the outer supports.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.1017-1038
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• 2015

This paper presents a strengthening method that involves the use of ferrocement jackets and chamfers to relocate plastic hinge for non-seismically designed reinforced concrete exterior beam-column joints. An experimental study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of the proposed strengthening method. Four half-scale beam-column joints, including one control specimen and three strengthened specimens, were prepared and tested under quasi-static cyclic loading. Strengthening schemes include ferrocement jackets with or without skeleton reinforcements and one or two chamfers. Experimental results have indicated that the proposed strengthening method is effective to move plastic hinge from the joint to the beam and enhance seismic performance of beam-column joints. Shear stress and distortion within the joint region are also reduced significantly in strengthened specimens. Skeleton reinforcements in ferrocement provide limited improvement, except on crack control. Specimen strengthened by ferrocement jackets with one chamfer exhibits slight decrease in peak strength and energy dissipation but with increase in ductility as compared with that of two chamfers. Finally, a method for estimating moment capacity at beam-column interface for strengthened specimen is developed. The proposed method gives reasonable prediction and can ensure formation of plastic hinge at predetermined location in the beam.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.825-832
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• 2010

Although a critical section reaches its flexural strength in reinforced concrete structures, the structure does not always fail because moment redistribution occurs during the formation of plastic hinges. Inelastic deformation in a plastic hinge region results in plastic rotation. A plastic hinge mainly depends on material characteristics. In this study, a plastic hinge length and plastic rotation are evaluated using the flexural curvature distribution which is derived from the material models given in Eurocode 2. The influence on plastic capacity the limit values of the material model used, that is, ultimate strain of concrete and steel and hardening ratio of steel(k), are investigated. As results, it is appeared that a large ultimate strain of concrete and steel is resulting in large plastic capactiy and also as a hardening ratio of steel increases, the plastic rotation increases significantly. Therefore, a careful attention would be paid to determine the limit values of material characteristics in the RC structures.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 1999.10a
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• pp.162-169
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• 1999

Intentionally weakened girders near the beam-to-colum connection lead ductile failures at the weakened points prior to potential brittle failure at the connection points subjected to strong earthquake. Recent research investigated cyclic behavior of composite beams with a rectangular web opening and find out ductile failure of such beams due to plastic hinge formation of T-section at the four corners of the rectangular opening. But eventual failures of T-sections are resulted from local buckling of T-section having a narrow stem and a narrow bound of plastic hinge formation. This continuing research proposes double-circular opening instead of rectangular one in ofter to improve energy dissipation capacity as well as composite beam strength, Experimental test of two specimens was carried out and its results are compared with those of nonlinear finite element analyses

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.137-146
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• 1999

Analysis of R/C columns requires modeling of the plastic hinge region, as well as nonlinear material characteristics. This becomes a challenging task in view of the nonlinearity of both steel and concrete. Furthermore, formation and progression of plasticity in the hinge is a difficult phenomenan to simulate, especially under reversed cyclic loading and decaying strength conditions. This research provide one analytical model employed in column analysis, including the analysis procedure for establishing inelastic force-deformation relationships. The analytical results show good correlation with experimental data. The employed procedure with the adopted analytical models can be used to compute inelastic displacements of concrete columns with welded reinforcement grids. The inelastic deformability beyond the peak was similar to those indicated by columns with conventional ties. The superior performance of columns with welded grids may be attributed to the improved confinement characteristics of grids associated with increased rigidity of welded ties.