• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.115-130
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• 2013

The sectional methods of current design codes have been broadly used for the design of various kinds of reinforced concrete pile caps. Lately, the strut-tie model approach of current design codes also became one of the attracting methods for pile caps. However, since the sectional methods and the strut-tie model approach of current design codes have been established by considering the behaviors of structural concrete without D-regions and two-dimensional concrete structures with D-regions, respectively, it is inappropriate to apply the methods to the pile caps dominated by 3-dimensional structural behavior with disturbed stress regions. In this study, the refined 3-dimensional strut-tie models, which consider the strength characteristics of 3-dimensional concrete struts and nodal zones and the load-carrying capacity of concrete ties in tension regions, are proposed for the rational analysis and design of pile caps. To examine the validity of the proposed models and to verify the necessity of appropriate constituent elements for describing 3-dimensional structural behavior and load-transfer mechanism of pile caps, the ultimate strength of 78 reinforced concrete pile caps tested to failure was examined by the proposed models along with the sectional and strut-tie model methods of current design codes.