This paper was published in ACI SP-123 Design of Beam-column Joints for Seismic Resistance, James O.

Jirsa, Editor, 1991, American Concrete Institute, pp. 125-144.

AIJ Proposal of Ultimate Strength Design Requirements for RC Buildings with Emphasis on Beam-column Joints
Shunsuke Otani

Synopsis: The Architectural Institute of Japan (AIJ) published "Design Guidelines for Earthquake Resistant Reinforced Concrete Buildings based on Ultimate Strength Concept (draft)" in October, 1988, as a first attempt to develop an ultimate strength design procedure in Japan. The paper introduces general concept of the design procedure, and explain in detail the deign requirements and background information for reinforced concrete beam-column joints of the AIJ guidelines. Based on experimental evidence, the amount of lateral reinforcement in the joint is required significantly reduced from the ACI requirements. Keywords: reinforced concrete, beam-column joints, shear, bond, anchorage, design requirements, earthquake resistance, ultimate strength design, Japan. Shunsuke Otani, associate professor, Department of Architecture, University of Tokyo, graduated from University of Tokyo, and obtained M. Sc. and Ph. D. degrees from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was awarded with the 1990 AIJ Prize for his work on Nonlinear Earthquake Response Analysis.

INTRODUCTION The first Japanese building code, Urban Building Law, was promulgated in 1919, to regulate buildings in six major cities. Structural design, based on the allowable stress design procedure, was outlined in Building Law Enforcement Regulations enacted in 1920. Earthquake resistant design with a seismic coefficient of 0.10 was introduced in 1924 in Building Law Enforcement Regulations after the 1923 Kanto earthquake. Building Standard Law, applicable to all buildings in Japan, was proclaimed in 1950, in which two levels of allowable stress levels were used for long-term gravity conditions and for short-term earthquake situations; i.e., the allowable stresses in earthquake loading were increased to full yield strength for reinforcement and to two-third compressive strength for concrete. The seismic coefficient was increased to 0.20 reflecting the increase in the allowable stresses. Building Standard Law Enforcement Order was revised in 1981, maintaining the allowable stress design procedure, to specify an ultimate lateral load resistance of each story.
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The Architectural Institute of Japan (AIJ) published "AIJ Standard for Structural Calculation of Reinforced Concrete Structures (Ref. 1)" in 1933. After many efforts to develop an ultimate strength design procedure, the AIJ published "Design Guidelines for Earthquake Resistant Reinforced Concrete Buildings based on Ultimate Strength Concept (draft) (Ref. 2)" in 1988. The AIJ guidelines were drafted by Seismic Design Sub-committee (chairman: T. Okada) of Reinforced Concrete Committee (chairman: Y. Kanoh), and was formally approved by Structures Committee, AIJ, in July, 1990. The application is limited to a regular building less than 45 m high. The guidelines have not obtained legal support from the Ministry of Construction. The guidelines are based on the capacity design concept.

AIJ GUIDELINES FOR EARTHQUAKE RESISTANT DESIGN It is desirable for a structure to be free from earthquake damage provided such a structure could be constructed at a reasonable cost. The AIJ guidelines accept that some damage should be tolerated in a case of an intense earthquake, but propose to avoid negative performance of a building, such as, a) large plastic deformations, b) concentration of damage in limited locations, and c) brittle failures. Yield Mechanism A building structural system of either moment resisting frames or a structural wall-moment resisting frame dual system shall be designed so that a total yield mechanism is controlled by beam-yielding (Fig. 1). The locations where yield hinges are intended to develop shall be planned to ensure a) a required lateral resistance of the building, and b) sufficient structural deformation capacity. The locations where yield hinges are not intended shall be provided with sufficient resistance to avoid hinges at these locations. Nonlinear earthquake response analyses indicated that the overall deflection of a structure is comparable for different distributions of damage within a building. Therefore, the smaller is the number of yield hinges to develop in a structure, the larger is the concentration of plastic deformation at each yield hinge (Fig. 2). Consequently, the beam-yielding total mechanism requires the smallest plastic deformation at each yield hinge. Assuring Deformation A building shall be provided with lateral load resistance and stiffness sufficient to limit "a story drift angle to be less than 1/100 rad" even during an intense earthquake. These requirements were stipulated to avoid damage to non-structural elements, and to ensure human safety and evacuation. A sufficient stiffness is also necessary to form the planned yielding mechanism prior
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to the limiting story drift angle. Considering uncertainties in earthquake characteristics and structural response, the building shall be detailed to deform to an "Assuring Deformation" without decay in resistance (Fig. 3); e.g., a story drift angle of 1/66 rad for a moment-resisting frame structure and 1/75 rad for a wall-frame structure. In other words, beams, columns, structural walls, and beams connected to a structural wall should be detailed to deform to a member rotational angle of 1/50, 1/67, 1/75, and 1/40 rad, respectively, if yield hinges are expected. Reliable and Upper Bound Strengths Two levels of the ultimate strength are defined; i.e., (1) "reliable strength": lower bound strength of a section or member calculated using sectional dimensions and specified material strengths, and (2) "upper bound strength": flexural strength at a hinge section evaluated by taking into consideration all possible factors which contribute to the strength, such as, statistical upper bound material strengths, additional construction steel, reliability of strength evaluation methods, and spread of effective slab width for beams and orthogonal wall width for columns. The effect of strain hardening is not considered because the member deformation is limited. The design action in the non-yielding regions of the structure is increased to recognize a) the upper bound strength of yielding members, b) the contribution of higher modes (dynamic effect), and c) the effect of bi-directional earthquake response. Mechanism Design and Assuring Design Design for earthquake loading is carried out in two steps: i.e., (1) "Mechanism Design": the reliable strength shall be provided at the planned yield hinges for the design bending moment determined by a linear structural analysis under earthquake loading using reduced member stiffness, and modified by moment redistribution, and (2) "Assuring Design": the reliable strength shall be provided at the non-yielding region for the design action determined by a nonlinear plastic analysis at the formation of the planned yielding mechanism. The upper bound strength at the planned yield hinges magnified by factors which account for the dynamic effect and bi-directional response should be used for an Assuring Design.

PERFORMANCE CRITERIA OF BEAM-COLUMN JOINTS "AIJ Standard for Structural Calculation of Reinforced Concrete Structures (Ref. 1)" does not require the design of beam-column joints. The lack of significant earthquake damage observed in reinforced concrete joints in Japan is the probable reason for this; however, the damage in a joint may have been hidden behind architectural coverage, or premature column failure may have reduced the action in the joint. The design of the beam-column joint has been reviewed for the guidelines.
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The AIJ guidelines require that the beam-column joint shall not be selected as a planned location of yield hinge in the Mechanism Design because a) the joint as a part of column must sustain the gravity load, b) large hysteretic energy dissipation and deformation capacity are difficult to achieve in the joint, and c) the joint is difficult to repair after an earthquake. A beam-column joint should be designed to avoid failure in shear of the joint panel and to avoid failure of the anchorage of the beam and column reinforcement. Significant shear stresses are put into the joint from the connecting beams and columns causing diagonal cracking of joint concrete and yielding of lateral reinforcement. In addition, the beam reinforcement yields at the face of the joint under the planned beam-yielding mechanism causing bond deterioration along the beam reinforcement within the joint. The combined effects result in a reduction in stiffness and energy dissipation capacity with increased deflection. The lateral reinforcement in the joint cannot eliminate the source of the stiffness degradation; therefore, the joint size and beam reinforcement (diameter and strength) must be altered to improve the joint performance. Therefore, the AIJ guidelines require that "Beam-column connection shall be designed to maintain its integrity to the assuring deformation (1/66 rad for a moment resisting frame, and 1/75 rad for a frame-wall dual structure), and to prevent a significant stiffness reduction and slip-type hysteretic behavior caused by load reversals."

DESIGN FOR SHEAR Design Principles The AIJ guidelines require that reliable shear strength, V ju , shall be greater than design shear,

V j , used in the Assuring Design.

Design Shear Design joint shear, V j , should be calculated by the following expression; V j = T + Cs '+ Cc ' Vc = T + T ' Vc

(1)

where the symbols are explained in Fig. 4. The upper bound strength must be used in evaluating tension forces, T and T ' , in the reinforcement. Column shear, Vc , may be taken as an average of the upper and lower story column shears. The value of input joint shear may differ in the positive and negative directions of earthquake loading especially when the beam reinforcement
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is anchored in the joint. Reliable Shear Strength The shear resisting mechanism may be thought to consist of truss action and a diagonal concrete strut action (Ref. 3, Fig. 5). The truss mechanism is formed by the bond stress transfer along the column and beam longitudinal reinforcement, tensile resistance of lateral reinforcement and compressive resistance of uniform diagonal concrete struts in the joint panel. The diagonal concrete strut mechanism is formed by the major diagonal concrete compression in the joint caused by compression and shear on concrete acting at the joint boundary. The lateral reinforcement increases joint shear resistance in the truss mechanism, but will not in the diagonal strut mechanism. Average joint shear stress, v ju , is evaluated using the effective joint shear area b j x D j , in which D j : column depth, b j : effective width of beam-column connection, given by Eq. (2). b j = bb + ba1 + ba 2 (2)

where, bb : beam width, ba1 , ba 2 : the smaller of one-quarter of column depth (e.g., shaded area on right side in Fig. 6) and one-half of distance between beam and column faces (e.g., shaded area on left side in Fig. 6) on either side of the beam. Interior joint test results of 68 specimens, tested between 1966 and 1988 in Japan and other countries, were compared with actual concrete strength in Fig. 7. Twenty-four specimens failed in joint shear before beam flexural yielding (solid square symbols; J-type). Forty-four specimens failed in shear after beam flexural yielding (open circle symbols; BJ-type), but at a story drift angle greater than 1/50 rad beyond the Assuring Deformation; hence the behavior of BJ-type specimens were judged acceptable in the AIJ guidelines. The lower bound shear strength of J-type specimens is approximately 0.3 times the concrete compressive strength in a concrete strength range from 210 to 360 kgf/cm2 (3,000 to 5,000 psi). Recent studies reveal that the lateral reinforcement is not as effective on joint shear resistance as previously considered. The effect of lateral reinforcement is presented in Fig. 8 for J-type test specimens (joint shear failure without beam flexural yielding). The ordinate represents the average shear stress at shear failure divided by the concrete compressive strength, and the abscissa represents the product of lateral reinforcement ratio and yield strength of lateral reinforcement. Those specimens tested as a series by the same researcher(s) are connected by straight lines. Some researchers reported an increase in resistance with the amount of lateral reinforcement; however, a majority of researchers did not.
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The number of exterior joint specimens failing in joint shear was small. Five specimens failed in joint shear before beam flexural yielding (J-type) and seven specimens failed in joint shear after beam flexural yielding (BJ-type) as shown in Fig. 9. The lower bound shear strength of J-type specimens is approximately 0.18 times the concrete compressive strength. Tests of interior and exterior joints that failed in shear demonstrated that the joint shear strength depends strongly on the concrete strength, but did not depend appreciably on the amount of lateral reinforcement. Therefore, the AIJ guidelines assume the diagonal strut action to be a dominant shear resisting mechanism in the joint, and define the reliable shear strength, V ju , of a beam-column connection to be proportional to the compressive strength f c ' of concrete; V ju = k f c ' b j D j
(3)

where, k : factor dependent on shape of a beam-column connection; i.e., 0.30 for an interior beam-column connection, and 0.18 for an exterior beam-column connection. Effective Joint Shear Area The dominant shear resisting mechanism is assumed to be the diagonal strut action in the AIJ guidelines; therefore, the entire column depth is assumed to be effective in an interior joint. However, the horizontally projected length of a 90-degree hook is used in an exterior joint because the compression strut is assumed to start at the corner of the bend by bearing against core concrete. The area effective to resist joint shear may not be as large as the column's entire cross area especially when the width of girders is narrow compared to that of the column. If the beams and columns are connected with eccentricity, torsional moment may be developed in the columns and beams, causing the reduction in stiffness by torsional cracking or the reduction in joint volume effective to resist shear. The shear resistance of a joint is known to decrease when the depth of connecting beams exceeds twice the column depth. Therefore, the AIJ guidelines intend to limit the effective joint shear area in an eccentric joint by Eq. (2). Minimum Joint Shear Reinforcement Although experimental results demonstrated small dependency of the joint shear resistance on the amount of joint lateral reinforcement, some lateral reinforcement is required (1) to avoid diagonal tension failure of the joint, (2) to improve the ductility of the joint by confining the cracked core concrete, and (3) to protect column corner bars from bond splitting failure. Therefore, the AIJ guidelines require that lateral reinforcement ratio, p jh , of a beam-column connection shall be not less than 0.002, and shall satisfy Eq. (4).
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p jh 0.003

Vj V ju

(4)

in which V j : design joint shear, V ju : reliable joint shear strength given by Eq. (3). Effect of Transverse Beams The unloaded transverse beams are known to increase the shear resistance and stiffness of a joint. For example, Fig. 10 compares the shear resistance of three-dimensional and two-dimensional beam-column sub-assemblages with respect to an index defined by Eq. (5);

bLb DLb 2 Db D

(5)

where, bLb : width of the transverse beam, DLb : depth of the transverse beam, but limited by depth of the longitudinal beam, Db : depth of the longitudinal beam, and D : depth of the column. However, a joint in a real building is subjected to bi-directional response during an earthquake, forming yielding hinges in the longitudinal and transverse beams at all faces of the joint. Therefore, the beneficial effect of the transverse beams may be reduced. To address this issue, the AIJ guidelines recommend that the transverse beam effect may be considered only when the transverse beams do not yield at the face of the joint, and that the shear resistance may be increased by the factor , where

= 1 + 0.3

(6)

The effect of the transverse beam shall not be considered if the transverse beam exists only on one side of the joint. Vertical Reinforcement in Joint The AIJ guidelines do not require the placement of vertical reinforcement in a joint because at least one intermediate column longitudinal reinforcing bar is placed in a column section. An experimental study on exterior al reinforcement especially under a large axial load (Ref. 4). Bi-directional Earthquake Response It is desirable to design a joint to resist simultaneous bi-directional earthquake loading conditions, in which the joint input shear becomes larger than that under uni-directional earthquake loading. Minami et al. (Ref. 5) tested three-dimensional beam-column joint specimens under horizontal
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load reversals in an inclined direction. The shear resistance, defined as a vectorial sum of the longitudinal and transverse shear resistances, increased when axial load was zero, but it increased little under an average axial stress of 0.2 times the concrete strength (Fig. 11). In three-dimensional beam-column joint tests (Ref. 6), in which the joint failed in shear after developing flexural yielding at beam ends, the resistance and deformation capacity were similar for a specimen subjected to separate longitudinal and transverse load reversals and a specimen subjected to diagonal load reversals. Therefore, the AIJ guidelines suggest that the joint might be designed for the two principal directions independently.

ANCHORAGE OF BEAM AND COLUMN REINFORCEMENT

Anchorage Method Beam longitudinal reinforcement normally passes through an interior joint, and is anchored with a 90-degree standard hook in an exterior joint. Hysteretic energy dissipation deteriorates with the yielding penetration of beam reinforcement into the joint and with the bond deterioration along the reinforcement. The bond deterioration may be delayed in the interior joint by passing the beam reinforcement in the confined concrete core, and by limiting the bond stress level in design. The beam reinforcement should be anchored within the joint core in the exterior joint. The tension in beam reinforcement often causes cone-type failures at the beam-column interface, resulting in a reduction in anchorage length. However, this behavior is not clearly understood, and the critical section for anchorage of the beam reinforcement may be taken at the face of the column. The guidelines require that the longitudinal reinforcement of beams shall pass through the column core or anchored in columns with a 90-degree standard hook. Development length of a bar may be measured from the critical section at the column face for beam reinforcement and at the beam face for column reinforcement. Anchorage with 90-degree Hook It is often difficult to distinguish a shear failure and an anchorage failure for tests conducted on exterior joints; however, the anchorage failure often exhibits bearing crushing of concrete at the bend, or splitting along the reinforcement. In some cases anchorage failure results in a sudden loss of resistance and poor hysteretic energy dissipation characteristics.
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Recent studies on the anchorage with a 90 degree hook point out the importance of the horizontal projection length before the bend. The extension of the reinforcing bar beyond 12 bar diameters from the bend is not effective for anchorage. Therefore, the straight portion of the bar before the bend should be as long as possible. There have been several proposals to evaluate the anchorage resistance of reinforcement with a 90-degree hook. Fujii et al. (Ref. 7) assumed that the bond stress transfer would be lost along the horizontal portion at an early stage, and that the anchorage resistance would be attained when the bearing stress along the bend reached the concrete bearing strength (Fig. 12), and proposed the expression below:
P = w db f bear sin

h
h j

(7)

in which
w = 1.41 r cos

= tan 1
dh

dh j = 1 + r + db r 0.84 3 db fc ' C0 db As 1 s

fbear =

= 16.1

= 1 + 30

where, db : bar diameter (cm), h : distance between column inflection points (cm), r : radius of bend (cm), 1 : embedment length (cm), f c ' : compressive strength of concrete (kgf/cm2), As : area of lateral reinforcement (cm2), s : spacing of lateral reinforcement (cm), j : distance between tensile and compressive resultants of the beam (cm), and C0 : cover thickness to the centroid of the column longitudinal reinforcement measured at the column side (cm). The average of the calculated to the observed for 73 specimens was 0.95 with a coefficient of variance of 0.18. Exterior joint specimens with beam bottom bars bent downward into the lower column normally exhibited smaller flexural resistance under positive bending than that under negative bending.
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Such reinforcement detailing requires a large amount of lateral reinforcement at the top of the lower column. It is more rational to bend the beam bottom reinforcement upward into the joint. The AIJ guidelines require that the beam longitudinal reinforcement shall be extended beyond the mid-depth of column with a 90-degree standard hook. Extension of a 90-degree standard hook shall be placed in the connection. The cover concrete for an exterior joint tends to spall off when the extension tail of the beam reinforcement lines up with the column longitudinal reinforcement, causing the loss of anchorage resistance. However, little test data are available on the necessary cover thickness for the extension. Bars Passing through Joint Average bond stress a of beam longitudinal reinforcement over the joint width is expressed by Eq. (8);

a =

as s D s

(8)

where as and s : area and perimeter of a beam bar, s : difference in beam bar stresses at the joint faces, and D : depth of the column. The area and perimeter are expressed by bar diameter db in Eq. (8), then

a =

s db 4D

(9)

If the bond strength is assumed to be proportional to the square root of concrete strength, and the stress difference s is determined for simultaneous yielding in tension and compression at the ends;

y D db f c '

(10)

where, y : yield strength of the beam bar. The guidelines do not specify the value of in Eq. (10). It is hard to prevent the bond deterioration for the concrete and reinforcement strengths, bar sizes, and column dimensions commonly used in Japan. The bond deterioration along the beam reinforcement causes the following problems; (1) reduction in hysteretic energy dissipation capacity results in increased earthquake response, (2) beam deformation is increased prior to beam flexural yielding, (3) large beam end rotation
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accelerates concrete crushing at the critical section, and (4) repair of the bond deterioration is difficult. However, if the beam critical region is properly confined, and if the beam reinforcement is anchored in the opposite side beam across the joint, the loss of bond in the joint may not lead to a sudden reduction in the beam resistance. A study of earthquake responses with different hysteresis models (Ref. 8) reveals out that the largest response is not sensitive to the hysteretic energy dissipation capacity. The study proposed a value of in Eq. (10) of 10 to maintain the hysteretic energy dissipation capacity at a story drift angle of 1/50 rad. It should be noted, however, that the maximum response amplitude may not be influenced by the decay in the hysteretic energy dissipation. The number of large amplitude oscillation certainly increases with the decay. The value of may be further increased because a) the increase in structural resistance due to the development of the upper bound strength at yield hinges will decrease the structural response, b) the consequence of bond deterioration is less significant than that of shear failure, c) the bond deterioration in a limited number of joints may not cause ill effect on the structural response as long as the majority of joints can maintain their stiffness and resistances. Therefore, some deterioration can be tolerated as long as the earthquake response can be controlled. Earthquake response analyses of frames (Ref.8) indicate that the slipping hysteretic characteristics do not increase response in the displacement range considered in the AIJ guidelines; i.e., an approximate story drift angle of 1/100 rad. The AIJ guidelines require that the bar size to member depth ratio shall be determined not to cause significant stiffness reduction or slip-type hysteretic behavior under load reversals where beam or longitudinal reinforcement is intended to yield at both faces of the connection.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The AIJ Design Guidelines for Earthquake Resistant Reinforced Concrete Buildings based on Ultimate Strength Concept was drafted by Seismic Design Sub-committee of Reinforced Concrete Committee, AIJ. The sub-committee consists of T. Okada as chairman, S. Otani, T. Kubo and S. Nomura as secretary, and M. Ohkubo, N. Kani, T. Kabeyasawa, S. Sugano, A. Shibata, O. Joh, S. Nakata, M. Hirosawa, Y. Matsuzaki, K. Minami, T. Yamauchi, K. Watanabe, and F. Watanabe. The author wishes to acknowledge the work by the committee members.

REFERENCES
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1. Architectural Institute of Japan, AIJ Standard for Structural Calculation of Reinforced Concrete Structures (in Japanese), 1933, 1937, 1947, 1949, 1958, 1962, 1971, 1975, 1979, 1982, 1988. 2. Architectural Institute of Japan, Design Guidelines for Earthquake Resistant Reinforced Concrete Buildings based on Ultimate Strength Concept (draft) and Commentary (in Japanese), October, 1988, 337 pp. 3. Paulay, T., R. Park, and M.J.N. Priestley, Reinforced Concrete Beam-column Joints under Seismic Actions, Journal, ACI, Vol. 75, No. 11, November, 1978, pp. 585 - 593. 4. Kaku, T., Resistance and Ductility of Exterior Reinforced Concrete Beam-column Joint (in Japanese), JCI Colloquium on Ductility of Concrete Structures and Its Evaluation, March, 1988, pp. II.119 - 130. 5. Fujiwara, M., Y. Nishimura, and K. Minami, Behavior of Three-dimensional Beam-column Sub-assemblages under Bi-directional Loading (in Japanese), Proceedings, Japan Concrete Institute, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 525 - 530. 6. Kusakari, T., O. Joh, and T. Shibata, Experimental Study on Failure of Three-dimensional Reinforced Concrete Beam-column Joints (in Japanese), Report, AIJ Hokkaido Branch Meeting, Vol. 57, March, 1984. 7. Fujii, S., S. Goto, S. Morita, and G. Kondo, The Behavior of 90 Deg. Bent Bar Anchorage in Exterior Beam-column Joint, Part-2: Evaluation of Anchorage Capacity (in Japanese), Summary Report, AIJ Annual Meeting, Structural Division, October, 1983, pp.1823 - 1824. 8. Kitayama, K. and H. Aoyama, Earthquake Resistance of Reinforced Concrete Beam-column Sub-assemblages (in Japanese), Proceedings, Seventh Japan Earthquake Engineering Symposium - 1986, December, 1986, pp.1687-1692.

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(a) Beam Yield Mechanism

(b) Wall Yield Mechanism

(c) Wall Up-lifting Mechanism Fig. 1: Total Yield Mechanism

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Fig. 2: Partial Yield Mechanism

Fig. 3: Design Load and Deformation

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Fig. 4: Design Shear in Joint

Fig. 5: Shear Resisting Mechanism

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Fig. 6: Effective Joint Area for Shear Resistance

Fig. 7: Shear Strength and Concrete Strength (Interior Joint)

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Fig. 8: Lateral Reinforcement and Shear Strength (Interior Joint)

Fig. 9: Shear Strength and Concrete Strength (Exterior Joint)

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Fig. 10: Shear Strength Magnification by Orthogonal Beams

Fig. 11: Bi-directional Shear Interaction

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Fig. 12: Anchorage Mechanism of 90-degree Hook

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