Abstract: An energy threshold based damage criterion is proposed to evaluate the axial residual strength of RC columns. The damage criterion is a linear combination of one-step energy threshold and the total hysteretic energy, which can also reflect the coupling effect of them. The shaking table test data, pseudo-static test data and a numerical example are analyzed, and results indicated that the proposed damage criterion can evaluate the residual strength of the RC columns on almost all kinds of conditions, which can be used to analyze the failure path of buildings and bridge structures under seismic excitations.