6. Seismic Rehabilitation of Reinforced Concrete Beam‐Column Connections

As building codes are updated, some of the existing important structures may fall short of complying with current standards even though they may have been properly designed and constructed according to earlier codes. Many existing structures may be inadequate and may pose severe risk during seismic events. Rehabilitation measures to upgrade the capacity of these structures can be performed at some point in their useful lives especially when located in seismically active zones. A new method for improving the seismic performance of existing reinforced concrete structures is by jacketing the deficient connections using corrugated steel jackets. An experimental program was conducted to evaluate this method of rehabilitation. Corrugated steel jacketing addresses the particular weakness that is often found in existing reinforced concrete structures, namely the lack of sufficient shear reinforcement and the required confining reinforcement within the joints and in adjoining beams and columns. The performance of four reinforced concrete connections was determined experimentally. The test specimens include one connection representing existing structures, one designed according to current seismic codes and two rehabilitated connections. The test results showed satisfactory performance at high cyclic load levels and significant increase in the shear capacity and ductility of connections rehabilitated with corrugated steel jackets.