Seismosoft | Earthquake Engineering Solutions

How can I model beam-column joints flexibility in RC frames?

You may employ a link element, featuring an adequately calibrated response curve, connected to the end nodes of the concurring beams and columns to model any possible flexibility of the beam-column panels (caused for instance by shear deformations, bar slippage or yield penetration) in existing structures with inadequate seismic detailing. Note, however, that if the infrm elements employed to model the beams and columns are elongated all the way till the intersection of their barycentre (i.e. if no rigid panel zone is modelled), then some degree of panel flexibility is already present in the model, and hence care should be taken not to double-count it. On the other hand, new structures that respect modern seismic design requirements are likely to be better modelled if a rigid panel is explicitely modelled (using infinitely rigid elements with lengths corresponding to the beam-column panel width and height).

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