Modelling of RC Beam-Column Exterior Joints for Cyclic Loadings

Recent and past seismic events have emphasized the key role of beam-column joints on the vulnerability of existing RC frame buildings. Indeed, damages and unexpected failure modes of these structural components in some cases resulted the main responsible of a poor seismic response of buildings. The lack of care by past standard codes for the design of beam-column joints and, moreover, the difficulties in modelling and simulating their complex behavior, are clearly highlighted by the available studies of literature, where the attention is mainly focused on the derivation of constitutive laws and numerical modelling approaches. The present paper concerns the numerical study of exterior RC beam–column joints. In particular, starting from the models available in literature, laws able to reproduce the monotonic and cyclic behavior are derived, implemented by using the simple scissors model and subsequently assessed toward experimental tests.