EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON DRY FLEXIBLE BEAM-COLUMN JOINT IN BUCKLING RESTRAINED BRACED REINFORCED CONCRETE FRAME STRUCTURES

A dry flexible beam-column joint was proposed for the use in prefabricated buckling restrained braced reinforced concrete frame structures. To study the mechanical properties, failure modes and load-bearing capacity of the joint, and cyclic loading tests were conducted on four prefabricated joints and one cast-in-suit joint for comparison. The influence of the concrete slab and shapes of bolt holes on the performance of joints was investigated. The results show that the influence of the slab on the stiffness and flexural strength of the joints is significant, which cannot be neglected in practical design. The types of bolt holes have little effect on the joint behavior when the structural lateral drift is small, but will influence the failure mode of connecting parts under large deformation. It is also shown that prefabricated flexible joints have much larger deformation capacity than cast-in-situ ones and thus are benefit to local damage control of the structure.