Flexural Pinching and Energy Dissipation Capacity

휨핀칭과 에너지 소산능력

Pinching is an important property of reinforced concrete member which characterizes its cyclic behavior. In the present study, numerical studies were performed to investigate the characteristics and mechanisms of pinching behavior and the energy dissipation capacity of flexure-dominated reinforced concrete members. By analyzing existing experimental studies and numerical results, it was found that energy dissipation capacity of a member is directly related to energy dissipated by re-bars rather than concrete that is a brittle material, and that it is not related to magnitude of axial compressive force applied to the member. Therefore, for a member with specific arrangement and amount of re-bars, the energy dissipation capacity remains uniform regardless of the flexural strength that is changed by the magnitude of axial force applied. Due to the uniformness of energy dissipation capacity pinching appears in axial compression member. The flexural pinching that is not related to shear force becomes conspicuous as the flexural strength increases relatively to the uniform energy dissipation capacity. Based on the findings, a practical method for estimating energy dissipation capacity and damping modification factor was developed and verified with existing experiments.