Journal of Materials and Engineering Structures (Jan 2019)
Flexural ductility of RC elements: influences of size effects and bending-shear interaction
Abstract
Under seismic loading, some structural elements are subjected to combined solicitations (bending-shear for isntance). The flexural ductility of a reinforced concrete element reduces its shear capacity. In fact, during plastic dissipation (by cracking), the transfer mechanisms of the shear force are impacted, which can lead to a brittle failure. The description of this interaction is based firstly on a good estimation of the flexural ductility. The bending behavior of reinforced concrete elements are influenced by the size effect. The objective of this work is to propose an approach for describing the flexure--shear interaction taking into account the size effect. Comparisons with experimentation show the capacity of the proposed approach to describe the above mentioned phenomena.