The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

Hysteretic behavior of lightweight reinforced concrete beam-column subassemblages

Forzani, Brian; Popov, Egor P.; Bertero, Vitelmo V.

UCB/EERC-79/01, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 1979-04, 116 pages (515/F65/1979)

This paper describes an experimental investigation into the behavior of interior beam-column joints of a ductile moment-resisting frame constructed of lightweight aggregate concrete. Emphasis is placed on the effects of bond deterioration in the joint region. Results of experiments carried out on two lightweight R/C specimens are compared with similar experiments on specimens constructed of normal weight concrete. Comparison reveals a similar performance when the specimens are subjected to monotonically increasing lateral loads, but a considerably poorer performance of the lightweight specimens when subjected to cyclic loading similar to that which can be expected from severe seismic excitation. Recommendations are given for improving observed behavior and for further research.

Available online: http://nisee.berkeley.edu/documents/EERC/EERC-79-01.pdf (31 MB)