Evaluation of Shear Deformation and Energy Dissipation of Reinforced Concrete Members Subjected to Cyclic Loading

In reinforced concrete (RC) members subjected to cyclic loading, the unloading/reloading stiffness and hysteretic energy dissipation decreased due to shear deformation caused by diagonal web cracking in the plastic hinge zone. In this study, nonlinear analysis was performed to investigate the shear-deformation mechanism and its effect on the degradation of hysteretic energy dissipation. The result showed that the longitudinal member elongation increased by cyclic loading has substantial effects on the shear deformation and thereby degradation of the stiffness and energy dissipation. On the basis of the result, the shear deformation and hysteretic energy dissipation of RC members were theoretically evaluated as the functions of the longitudinal elongation. The proposed method was applied to existing test specimens with various design parameters. The results showed that the proposed method predicted the test results with reasonable precision.