Engineering Structures 24 (2002) 419428 www.elsevier.

com/locate/engstruct

Experimental tests on reinforced concrete columns under biaxial quasi-static loading

Fawei Qiu *, Wenfeng Li, Peng Pan, Jiaru Qian
Department of Civil Engineering, Tsinghua University, 100084 Beijing, PR China Received 27 February 2001; received in revised form 11 September 2001; accepted 14 September 2001

Abstract Seven specimens of reinforced concrete column subjected to biaxial loading were investigated in this paper. The strength and stiffness degradation under different load path is analyzed, and the accumulative hysteresis dissipated energy and damage indexes were calculated on the basis of test results. Six types of biaxial load path commonly used nowadays were selected and applied for the specimens. Displacement control was adopted as the loading mode in this study. 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Reinforced concrete column; Biaxial quasi-static test; Accumulative hysteresis dissipation energy; Damage

1. Introduction It is very important to study structural behavior under multi-dimensional earthquake conditions. Investigations after earthquakes, and experimental studies, have shown that damage to reinforced concrete structures caused by earthquakes in two directions is much more serious than that by earthquakes in one direction. It is because damage caused in one direction weakens the seismic resistance in the other direction, and the coupling effect of both directions decreases the structural seismic resistance seriously. Furthermore, many buildings are not regular and have a tendency to develop biaxial response, even under a single directional earthquake. Thus, it is very important to investigate structural behavior under biaxial loading. In addition, research on structures under multi-dimensional earthquake conditions must attempt to meet the demand of structural design analysis and the development of design codes. Because the research in the eld of structures under multi-dimensional earthquakes is very difcult and there is no efcient biaxial hysteresis model available, experimental research as a direct method is very important. The quasi-static test method is now a widely used technique in research. It can provide sufcient information on tested structures or components, such as

strength, stiffness, ability of deformation, capacity of energy dissipation and damage [15]. Bousias [6] used eleven types of load path to carry out experiments on reinforced concrete columns. Kobayashi [7] used six types of loading path to investigate the problems of loading on circular reinforced concrete columns. Okada [8] researched reinforced concrete columns under constant axial force by a similar method. Li et al. [9] conducted tests with a series of quarter-scale reinforced concrete columns subjected to varying axial and bi-directional load reversals. An interaction among the triaxial resistances was clearly observed in the tests. Maruyama [10] investigated the response of eighteen short RC columns under biaxial load histories. Low [11] also performed biaxial loading tests with reinforced concrete columns. Many fewer multi-dimensional quasi-static tests have been carried out to date, compared to uniaxial tests. As a result there is a lack of progress in research on structure multi-dimensional theory, and the difculty in carrying out multi-dimensional experiments. In this article, tests on seven reinforced concrete columns subjected to biaxial load are conducted. The main purpose of this paper is to compare the deformation ability and character of damage of columns under biaxial loading to that under uniaxial loading; the status of hysteresis energy dissipation and accumulative damage of different columns is also investigated in this paper.

* Corresponding author.
0141-0296/02/$ - see front matter 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 1 4 1 - 0 2 9 6 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 1 0 8 - 0

420

F. Qiu et al. / Engineering Structures 24 (2002) 419428

2. Loading scheme and test control software There are currently many quasi-static test schemes commonly used, and also many control modes such as displacement control, force control and forcedisplacement control, but there is no criterion on the biaxial loading issue. That is the reason why the control mode and its switchover are difcult to determine. For example, if force control mode is chosen at the beginning of test, the problem is whether to switchover the control mode from force to displacement when yielding appears in only one direction. The external displacement control method was used in the tests presented in this paper. The multi-dimensional quasi-static test differs from the unique dimensional quasi-static test, which means that the traces of the force control phase and displacement control phase are inconsistent. In this paper, in order to ensure the loading trace in the XY plane, only the displacement control mode is employed. One drawback of the biaxial loading test is the geometric nonlinearity brought about by actuators in both directions. In most situations, this shortcoming can be overcome by employing a separate external transducer. Modication should be made to the displacement measurements applying the internal displacement transducer. The Structural Laboratory of the Civil Engineering Department of Tsinghua University uses actuators and a control system produced by cooperation with MTS (USA). Based on this system, three test control software systems have been developed [10]; they are pseudodynamic test software (TUT), quasi-static test software (TUST), and multi-dimensional quasi-static test software (TUMT). Six kinds of loading schemes were employed in TUMT, and can be chosen by the user. This software also has the function of testing simulation. TUMT adopted a table and graph interface in the structural parameter input, equipment conguration, real time monitoring and controlling during the test. A simple input menu is employed in TUMT, the input parameters are the numbers of actuators, the DOFs of the specimen, channel number of the displacement transducer, channel number of the loading cell, number of control channels, initial default value, amplitude increment, loading step, number of cycles for each amplitude, loading direction, tolerance value, le name and path of output, the maximum velocity of actuators and so on. There are three control modes for displacement control, (1) internal displacement control loop, whose measurement displacement comes from the transducer of actuators, (2) external displacement control loop, whose measurement displacement comes from the transducer in the specimen, (3) command control, in which the command signal is sent to the actuator only, without comparing and judgment between the expected and measured value. Furthermore, TUMT can display the measurement value, hysteresis curve, loading trace and the deformation of the specimen simultaneously.

3. Test set-up and test result The dimensions and steel-bar-reinforcement layout of the reinforced concrete column are shown in Fig. 1. The test set-up is shown in Fig. 2. A jack provides the constant vertical force, two actuators with 250 mm stroke and 250 kN maximum force supply the horizontal forces. Seven loading path are listed in Table 1. The actually measured yield points fy of the loading amplitudes are 5 mm, 10 mm, 15 mm, and so on in the Xdirection, and the loading amplitudes are 4 mm, 8 mm, 12 mm, and so on in the Y-direction. Three cycles are repeated in each amplitude. The comparison of expected and measured value are under the setting tolerance. In this paper, Fig. 3 shows the measurement displacement traces of RC-1 to RC-6. The hysteresis curves of specimens RC-0 to RC-6 are shown in Figs. 4 and 5 respectively. The relationship between the transverse X-direction force vs the Y-direction force of RC-1 to RC-6 is shown in Fig. 6. When there is a displacement at the top of the column, the direction of vertical load does not remain constant,

Fig. 1. Dimensions and steel-bar-reinforcement layout of the reinforced concrete columns.

Fig. 2.

Test set-up.

F. Qiu et al. / Engineering Structures 24 (2002) 419428

421

Table 1 Loading path and parameters of the specimens Specimen RC-0 RC-1 RC-2 RC-3 RC-4 RC-5 RC-6

Load path fc (N/mm2) Axial load N (kN) N/Acfc 39.6 350 0.228 40.9 350 0.210 37.7 350 0.228 37.5 350 0.229 38.9 350 0.221 38.2 360 0.230 34.8 300 0.211

Fig. 3.

Measurement displacement traces of specimens RC-1 to RC-6.

which will affect the test results. However, the horizontal component of the vertical load can be easily calculated by the geometrical deformation of the test set-up. Corrections were made by subtracting the amount of the horizontal component of vertical load from the measured horizontal load. The axial load shown in Table 1 was the amount of the measured horizontal load. During the test, the amount of axial load remains constant, as shown in Table 1.

3.1. Stiffness and strength degradation The envelope of the hysteresis curve of the seven specimens under different load paths is shown in Fig. 7. The three most severely degraded specimens are RC-1, RC-6 and RC-3 consequently. RC-2 is the least degraded one. On the whole, the trends of degradation are consistent in both the X-direction and Y-direction for all the specimens.

422

F. Qiu et al. / Engineering Structures 24 (2002) 419428

Fig. 4.

Hysteresis curves of specimens RC-0 to RC-3.

3.2. Accumulative hysteresis dissipation energy The accumulative hysteresis dissipation energy equates to the close area of the hysteresis curve. The X-direction, Y-direction and total accumulative hysteresis dissipation energy is calculated by the following equations: Ex Ey Fxdx Fydy (1)

(2) (3)

E Ex E y

The accumulative hysteresis dissipated energy varies with the cycle number of load amplitude, as shown in Fig. 8. The cycle level of loading amplitude in the horizontal coordination corresponds to the terminating point of three cycles of each amplitude. According to accumulative hysteresis dissipation energy in the X-direction or Y-direction, the accumulative hysteresis dissipation energy of specimen RC-6 is more than that of all other specimens. In fact, for the same loading amplitude, the accumulative hysteresis dissipation energy has a close correlation with the length and location of the loading path, for example, under the same loading amplitude, loading path 2 and path 3 have same length of displacement, but their accumulative hysteresis dissipation energy differs greatly because of the difference between

F. Qiu et al. / Engineering Structures 24 (2002) 419428

423

Fig. 5.

Hysteresis curves of specimens RC-4 to RC-6.

their loading locations. For the same reason, loading path 3 and path 6 have similar loading locations, but their accumulative hysteresis dissipation energy also varies apparently due to the different length of loading path. 3.3. Comparison of accumulative damages It is very difcult to determine the yielding point from the hysteresis curve accurately, so it is assumed that the yielding force Qyx=0.8Qux, Qyy=0.8Quy. Qyx, Qux, Xd, Qyy, Quy and Yd is dened in Fig. 9. According to the seismic damage model proposed by Park et al. [12,13], the accumulative damage index in the X-direction and Y-direction (Fig. 10) is computed by the following formulae. The results are shown in Figs. 11 and 12. Because the results are not normalized, they may be larger than one. Dx Dy Xm Ex b Xd QyxXd Ym Ey b Yd QyyYd (4) (5)

accumulative damage of reinforced concrete columns under biaxial loading in this paper. Method 1 D Dx Dy lmin(Dx,Dy) Method 2 D max(Dx,Dy) Method 3 D max(Dx,Dy) Method 4 D Xm Ex+Ey b (Xm Ym) Xd QyxXd Ym Ex+Ey b Yd QyyYd (Ym Xm) (9) Dx or Dy min(Dx,Dy) Dx+Dy (8) Ex or Ey min(Dx,Dy) Ex+Ey (7) (6)

Four methods are employed to calculate the total

(10)

424

F. Qiu et al. / Engineering Structures 24 (2002) 419428

Fig. 6.

Transverse X-direction force vs Y-direction force of RC-1 to RC-6.

The parameter b in the formulae above is calculated by the following: b 0.447 0.073 l 0.24no 0.314pt d 0.7rw (11)

aged is RC-6, followed by RC-3, RC-1, RC-5 consecutively. RC-2 is the least damaged of the specimens subjected to a biaxial load.

in which l/d=shear span ratio (replaced by 1.7 if l/d 1.7); no=normalized axial stress (replaced by 0.2 if no 0.2); pt=longitudinal steel ratio as a percentage; and rw=confinement ratio. The parameter l in Eq. (6) is a factor which relates to the damage of the specimen, here let l=0.5. Method 4 indicates that the damage of the column is determined by the maximum displacement, and accounts for the coupling effect of the other direction. The calculated results by the four methods are very close for all seven specimens, as shown in Fig. 11. So all methods can be employed to compute the biaxial damage of reinforced concrete columns. The main purpose of this paper is to compare the accumulative damages of different loading paths, so the calculated results of method 1 and method 3 are employed. The calculated results of the biaxial accumulative damage indexes of the seven specimens are shown in Fig. 12. The least damaged specimen is RC-0, and the most severely dam-

4. Conclusions The carrying capacity of a column under biaxial load differs greatly from that loaded uniaxially. Under biaxial loading, the interactions of biaxial deformation apparently weaken the biaxial force and hysteresis dissipation energy ability, and the plastic deformation ability of the specimen decreases under biaxial load. According to the test result, although the accumulative hyteresis dissipation energy relates closely to the loading position and path length, the accumulative hysteresis dissipation energy of a specimen under biaxial load is apparently larger than that under unidirectional loading, and its plastic deformation ability is also weaker than the specimen subjected to uniaxial loading. The damage to the specimen under uniaxial loading is greater than that of the X- or Y-direction under biaxial loading, but less than the total damage of the specimen subjected to biaxial loading. There are many unsolved problems in this eld,

F. Qiu et al. / Engineering Structures 24 (2002) 419428

425

Fig. 8. Accumulative hysteresis dissipated energy varies with the cycle level of load amplitude. Fig. 7. RC-6. Load displacement peak envelopes of specimens RC-0 to [5] Qiu F, Qian J, Chen Z. Structure seismic test method. Beijing: Science Publication Company, 2000. [6] Bousias SN, Verzeletti G, Fardis MN, Gutierrez E. Loadpath effects in column biaxial bending with axial force. J Engng Mech, ASCE 1995;121(5):596605. [7] Kobayashi, K., Kokusho, S., Takiguchi, K., Boo, C.Y. Study on the restoring force characteristics of RC column to bi-directional deection history. In: Proc. of Eighth WCEE, San Francisco, vol. 6 1984:537-44. [8] Studies on earthquake engineering. Digests of project research activities, No. 5. Japan: The Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo; March 1986. p. 106107. [9] Li, K.N., Aoyama, H., Otani, S. Reinforced concrete columns under varying axial load and bidirectional lateral load reversals. In: Proceedings of the 9th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Tokyo, vol. III, 1998:537-42. [10] Maruyama K, Ramirez H, Jirsa JO. Short rectangular RC columns under bilateral load histories. J Struct Engng, ASCE 1984;110(1):12037. [11] Low SS, Moehle JP. Experimental study of reinforced concrete columns subjected to multi-axial loading. In: Report No. UCB/EERC-87/14. Berkeley (CA): University of California, 1987. [12] Park YJ, Ang AHS. Mechanistic seismic damage model for reinforced concrete. J Struct Engng, ASCE 1985;111(4):72239. [13] Park YJ, Ang AHS, Wen YK. Seismic damage analysis of reinforced concrete buildings. J Struct Engng, ASCE 1985;111(4):74057.

especially in the determination of loading schemes and the selection of loading path. This paper is an initial step of our work, and further effort needs to be made.

Acknowledgements The authors thank the Engineering Structural Laboratory of Tsinghua University. The authors are very grateful to Professor Masayoshi Nakashima for his valuable comments on this paper.

References
[1] Industry standard of Republic of China. Regulation on structure seismic test method, JGJ 101-96. Beijing: Construction Industry Publication Company of China, 1997. [2] Leon RT, Deierlein GG. Considerations for the use quasi-static testing. Earthquake Spectra 1996;12(1):87109 [February]. [3] Zhu B. Structure seismic test. Beijing: Seismic Publication Company, 1989. [4] Yao Z, Liu Z. Building structure test. Shanghai: Tongji University Publication Company, 1996.

426

F. Qiu et al. / Engineering Structures 24 (2002) 419428

Fig. 9.

Skeleton curves of the X- and Y-direction.

Fig. 10.

Comparisons between accumulative damage in the X-direction and Y-direction.

F. Qiu et al. / Engineering Structures 24 (2002) 419428

427

Fig. 11. Comparisons between accumulative damage resulting from four calculating method.

428

F. Qiu et al. / Engineering Structures 24 (2002) 419428

Fig. 12.

Comparisons between total accumulative damage.