Abstract:
Although the principle of seismic design of buildings calls for formation of plastic hinges in girders rather than in columns, the uncertainty of earthquakes makes it possible for plastic hinges to form in columns. Therefore, for the sake of safety, it is necessary to design columns with sufficient ductility and shear capacity to avoid the brittle failure which is dangerous. The confinement steel design equation of ACI 318-99 is based on test data of normal-strength concrete columns and does not account for the effect of axial load and transverse reinforcement configuration. Hence the ACI design equation needs to be improved for high-strength concrete columns to reflect these important parameters. This report presents the regression analysis results of high-strength column test data which include concrete strength in the range of 70 to 110 MPa. The columns considered were subjected to constant axial compression load and cyclic lateral load. The relationship between the effective confinement steel ratio proposed by Lukkunaprasit and the displacement ductility factor, and the relationships between the displacement ductility factor and other performance indexes for high-strength concrete columns are developed. Furthermore several shear strength equations, e.g. the ACI 318-99 equation, are checked against high-strength concrete column test data. From the analyses of high-strength concrete column test data it is found that the effective confinement steel ratio has an evident relationship with the displacement ductility factor, and such relationship can be applied in the confinement steel design of high-strength concrete columns. Moreover other column performances such as energy dissipation, effective stiffness degradation, can be assessed. The effective confinement steel ratio can satisfactorily take into account the effect of amount of confinement steel and steel configuration when the axial load level is not lower than 20% of axial load capacity based on concrete strength and gross cross-sectional area. From the analyses of lateral load capacity of high-strength concrete columns failed in flexure it is found that the use of the equivalent rectangular compressive stress block as defined by ACI 318-99 is less conservative with increase in concrete strength, and it is not safe enough for columns with concrete strength above 90 MPa. As for high-strength concrete columns failed in shear it appears that the ACI 318-99 shear strength equation is not safe for the design of columns under seismic action when the compressive strength is higher than 50 MPa.