Ductility of high strength reinforced concrete columns Original Research Article

Based on the experimental research of 48 reinforced concrete columns using high strength and normal strength concrete under monotonic and cyclic loading, the factors which affect the ductility, such as the concrete strength, axial load ratio, stirrup volume ratio, etc., are analyzed. It can be concluded that the axial load ratio is the most important factor that affects the ductility. The axial load ratio limits and relative stirrup volume ratio limits were proposed under the cpndition of limited ductility (μΔ ⩾ 3). The experiments also show that the relationship between the stirrup ratio and axial load ratio is not linear if the axial load ratio is high, which is different from the finding of previous research. In the design, a simplified bilinear relationship can be adopted which agrees well with the experimental results.