Experimental Study on Performance of Ductile and Non-ductile Reinforced Concrete Exterior Beam-column Joint

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the behaviour and the performance of reinforced concrete (RC) exterior Beam-Column Joints (BCJ) experimentally under reverse quasi-static cycle displacement test conducted for ductile and non-ductile detailed reinforcement. Two columns (one upper and one lower) and one beam were used to construct the specimen; the beam end is free, while the other ends are fixed. These specimens were subjected to reverse cyclic quasi-static stress till failure. At each cycle, the hysteresis curve, cracking loads, ultimate loads, deflection of the loaded at the free end of the beam, crack patterns, and failure mechanisms of BCJ were recorded and studied. Additionally, all specimens’ energy dissipation and stiffness deterioration were addressed. The experimental results reveal that the ductile joint (DJ) performance is more satisfactory in all the parameters than the non-ductile joint (NDJ). The ultimate load and energy dissipation of DJ is approximately 20% higher than the NDJ. However, expected beam failure occurred in the ductile joint, and the non-ductile joint underwent undesirable joint failure.