Numerical Investigation of Reinforced Concrete and Steel Fiber-Reinforced Concrete Exterior Beam-Column Joints under Cyclic Loading

This study presented the influence of steel fiber-reinforced concrete in reducing the transverse reinforcements in the beam-column joint panel zone to solve the reinforcement congestion problem using numerical simulation. A nonlinear finite element approach in ABAQUS/Standard is implemented to simulate the specimens under cyclic loading. The model accuracy is verified by using existing experimental studies available in the published literature. To investigate the influence of steel fiber by reducing the number of transverse reinforcements in the joint panel zone, an adequate shear-reinforced concrete joint is selected as a control specimen from the validated specimens. Totally eight specimens including the control specimen are investigated, of which one reinforced concrete specimen was modeled without any transverse reinforcement in joint and the remaining specimens are modeled by the addition of volume fraction of steel fiber of 1%, 1.5%, and 2% in concrete by the reduction of transverse reinforcements in joint from the control specimen. The result revealed that the addition of 1.5% and 2% volume fractions of steel fiber to concrete could effectively accommodate up to 67% reduction of transverse reinforcement in joint, and addition of 1% volume fraction of steel fiber with the reduction of 33% transverse reinforcement in the beam-to-column joint could effectively comparable to the adequate shear-reinforced concrete joint.