Journal of Al-Azhar University Engineering Sector

Vol.17, No.62, January 2022, 54 - 64

Vol. , No, ,

REINFORCED CONCRETE COLUMNS STRENGTHENED AT

INTERSECTION WITH DROPPED BEAMS
Elsayed Ateya, Mohamad Alkersh

Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt.

E-mail: [email protected]

E-mail: [email protected]

Received :25 Sept. 2021 Accepted:16 Oct. 2021

ABSTRACT
In the current high-rise reinforced concrete structures, high strength concrete is usually used for the
columns, whereas normal strength concrete is usually used for ceilings (slabs and beams). In general,
slabs and beams are cast constantly over the crossing zone of a beam-column. As a result, stress from
the column above the beam must travel through a weaker beam concrete layer before reaching the
column below the beam. The load-transmission mechanism through this sort of link is of significant
importance and summarizes the whole behavior. However, theoretical studies that investigate the
effective compressive strengths of the slab-column connection zone with dropped beams are still not yet
available. In order to study compressive force of the column at the intersection, preliminary tests were
carried out on five reinforced concrete specimens designed to simulate real column retention situation
at the dropped beam and column intersection. The results show that concrete strength at the junction is
increased by containment of the dropped beam system surrounding it. The sample demonstrated an
increase in effective compressive strength as compared to that of the specimen without reinforcement
with beam-column reinforced steel connection area.
Keywords: High-rise reinforced concrete buildings, Beam-column joint, Slab-column joint,
Variable compressive strength, Confinement, Reinforced Concrete.

‫تدعيم االعمده الخرسانية المسلحة عند تقاطعها مع الكمرات الساقطة‬

‫ محمد القرش‬، ‫السيد عطية‬
‫ مصر‬،‫ القاهرة‬،‫ جامعة االزهر‬، ‫ كلية الهندسة‬، ‫قسم الهندسة المدنية‬

‫الملخص‬
‫ حيث انه في المباني الخرسانية الشاهقة عادة‬, ‫هذا البحث يقدم دراسة نظرية وعملية لتقوية االعمدة عند تقاطعها مع الكمرات الساقطه‬
‫ما تستخدم خرسانة عالية المقاومة لالعمدة وخرسانة متوسطة المقاومة لالسقف ونظرا لوجود جزء من قطاعات االعمدة يتم صبة مع‬
‫ تعتبر الية‬.‫السقف وبناءا علية تنتقل قوة الضغط الموجوده في االعمدة من خالل هذا الجزء حتي يصل الحمل الي قطاع العمود السفلي‬

54
 REINFORCED CONCRETE COLUMNS STRENGTHENED AT INTERSECTION WITH

DROPPED BEAMS

‫ تم اختبار خمس عينات لمحاكاة‬.‫نقل الحمل في هذا الجزء ذو اهمية كبيره نظرا النه يؤثر علي القوه الفعلية التي يتحملها قطاع العمود‬
‫تبين من النتائج وجود تأثير جيد للكمرات الساقطة في منطقة تقاطعها مع‬. ‫تدعيم االعمدة في منطقة تقاطعها مع الكمرات الساقطة‬
.‫العمود الي جانب زيادة مؤثره في حمل الكسر عند زيادة نسبة التسليح الطولي في هذه المنطقة‬
‫ اختالف المقاومة‬،‫ وصلة البالطة مع الكمرة‬،‫ وصلة العمود مع الكمره‬، ‫ المباني الخرسانية المسلحلة الشاهقة‬: ‫الكلمات المفتاحية‬
.‫ الخرسانة المسلحة‬،‫ االحاطة‬،‫المميزه للخرسانة‬
1. INTRODUCTION
Due to substantial development in the field of concrete technology, high strength is feasible in the
production of concrete. High-strength concrete of 100 MPa is applied especially in high-rise buildings.
The strong compressive resistance characteristics of concrete materials can be more effectively utilized
in structural column members with the application of high-strength concrete (HSC). The usage of HSC
allows columns to be reduced as well as concrete resources to be saved, which also allows effective
floor areas. However, floors are preferred to be designed using normal strength concrete (NSC), because
HSC is not economical to be applied to large floor slabs. While the column members are coated with
HSC materials, they are also the same.
From an economic point of view, this approach is quite useful, but it makes it tough to connect to the
floor slab. To optimize the utilization of material resistance characteristics, slabs are constructed of
normal strength concrete or lightweight concrete aggregate. For this reason, significantly different
strength characteristics of concrete come into contact. The effect of the crossing of high strength
concrete by weaker slab concrete is thus seen as a serious concern.
When the column and floor slab members have different concrete compressive strength grades, the
provisions on current design in ACI [2] require an acceptable load transmission at the slab–column
junctions via one of the following three techniques;
The first technique is to construct a floor close to the position of the column using the same concrete
strength as the concrete column, for which a concrete from the column must be poured up to 600 mm
from the surface of the column before hardening column concrete according to ACI and KCI or 500 mm
according to CSA [ref]. The concrete of the column is nicely incorporated with the concrete of the floor.
For the column design, this approach is easy since the compressive strength of the concrete column may
be used for the column design. However, it demands a high degree of monitoring, precise coordination
of concrete deliveries and the probable use of retardants, which necessarily reduces buildability.
In the second technique, the column member's axial strength is calculated through the floor system based
on a lower concrete strength value with vertical dowels and spirals as required.
The third technique suggests the effective compressive strength (f′ce) that will be used for the design of
the member of the column. According to ACI and KCI, the column's compressive strength (f′cc) is 1.4
times greater than that of the slabs in the compressive concrete slab (f′cj).

The current design codes (ACI 318-19; CSA A23.3-14 (2019)) include a provision where the load
transmission performance is guaranteed by the column if the upper/lower columns and slabs have
different compressive strengths, as shown in Figure (1-a) (Urban and Gołdyn 2015). The ACI 318-19
indicates that if the column concrete's compressive strength is 1.4 times greater than that of the slab’s
compressive strength, the column concrete should be either extended by more than 600 mm beyond the
column face, as illustrated in Figure (1-b), be strengthened in Figure (1-c) with vertical dowels or
spirals, or adopt the effective compressive strength ( f′ce ).
Many models of regression, empirical mainly, for the prediction of the effective strength of the column-
slab junction, based on mechanics of structures and materials [4, to 10]. ACI code [1] proposes that
column strength ratios from column concrete to slab concrete strength up to 1.4 are not reduced for
higher proportions, experiments based by Bianchini et al. [5], to forecast the effective strength of the
joint, the following statement was suggested:

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f'
ceff
=

0.75f'cc + 0.35f'cs (1)

Figure 1 Types of column-slab connection

Where, f'cc and f'cs are respectively the column strength and slab concrete.
Gamble and Klinar [7] proposed the following for calculating the strength of a column-slab joint as a
lower bound relationship:
f' ceff = 0.47f'cc + 0.67f'cs (2)
The ACI Code [2] equation has been reported to be adequate for column concrete strength to slab
concrete strength ratio of 1.4. But with the larger ratios, design provisions ACI Code [2] overestimate
and therefore insecure the effective strength of the joints.
The Canadian Standard CSA-A23.3:1994[6] provides the following design expression in current design
standards covering high strength concrete for greater column concrete strength to concrete strength slab:

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f' ceff = 0.25f'cc + 1.05f'cs (3)

It seems safe to use, although extremely cautious, the effective strength prediction in CSA A23.3[6]
design requirements.
The test programs of Bianchini et al. [5] are a noteworthy characteristic, and Gamble and Klinar [7] was
the absence of slab load. In reality, in a building prototype, the load on the slab produces substantial
tensile stress in the top flexural slab reinforcement near the column. The assumption that this strain
would have a harmful impact on the capacity of the surrounding slab to restrict the column-slab junction
would be reasonable [8]. The new design models have been created by Ospina and Alexander [8] that
incorporated the influence of the slab thickness-column ratio (aspect ratio, h/c). The design equation,
proposed to estimate the effective joint strength, is as follows:
f' ceff = ( )f'cc + (1.4- )f'cs (4)

In addition to the strength of the columns and slabs and the aspect ratio (h/c), impacts of the slab
confinement and slab strengthening ratio surrounding, rs, predicting the effective strength of the joint
should also be considered [9]. Based on the new parameters induction, the following equation predicting
has been drawn up:
f' ceff =0.35 f'cc + 0.384( ) λf'cs (5)

Recently, for the theoretical study of the problem, the mechanics of the material method, typically
utilized for composite materials, have been adopted [10]. With the use of existing test data, this
technique leads to a novel regression model for the effective strength calculation of the joint.
Furthermore, the recent experiments [7, to 13] have tended to invalidate the limits ratio of 1.4 between
the two concrete strengths, which ACI [1] allows in Sec. 10.15 of its construction code to be utilized
without taking into account any unfavorable impacts on the column's axial load capability. The effective
strength of the concrete joint has been determined to be commensurate with the product ratio and the
total of the two concrete strengths as shown below:
f' ceff = 2.25( ) (6)
This discovery leads to a comparison between the behavior of the column specimens and that of
composites materials. The gathered test data show that several mechanical principles of composite
material are applicable to sandwiched concrete. In addition, it has been noted that several of the
aforementioned models were built primarily for their own data by various scholars; except the Shah et
al. model [9] utilized by a wide range of data.
2. EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAM
2.1 Specimen Details
A total of five specimens were manufactured with a cross-section column (120x170) mm, and (800) mm
in length. The cross-section of beams in length (720) mm in the middle of the columns was (100x200)
mm. The heads of the columns on the top and the bottom (220x260) mm were given as shown in Figure
(2). The columns' compressive strengths were shown as the upper and lowers columns' average
strengths, because they had the same mixing design. The concrete mix was designed, aiming at a
compressive strength of about 35MPa for the column and 24.2MPa for the beam after 28 days. For the
columns, the vertical longitudinal reinforcement of all specimen was 4 bars with diameter 10mm and
the internal stirrups were 6mm diameter bars at 100mm spacing. For all beams, both the top and the
bottom of the longitudinal reinforcement were two bars of 10mm diameter and 6mm diameter bar
internal stirrups of 100 mm spacing. The control specimen C0 in Figure (3) has no additional
reinforcement. (C1-1&C1-2) contain extra internal stirrups in joint interaction between column-beam
their number (1&2) respectively with 6mm diameter bars and (C2-1&C2-2) have additional vertical

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longitudinal reinforcement. Their number (2&4) respectively were 12mm diameter bars. The specific
parameter of each specimen is described in Table (1).

Figure 2 specimens’ concrete dimension

Table 1 Specific parameter of each column

Group Column Columns' Beams additional additional

compressive compressive vertical internal
strengths strengths reinforcement stirrups
(MPa) (MPa)

reference C-0 35 24.2 ----- -----

1 C 1-1 35 24.2 ----- 1Ø 6

C 1-2 35 24.2 ----- 2Ø 6

2 C 2-1 35 24.2 2 Ø 12 -----

C 2-2 35 24.2 4 Ø 12 -----

The test specimens were divided into two groups and a column reference depending on
additional vertical reinforcement or internal stirrups as shown in Figure (3).

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Figure 3 Details of reinforcement for all columns

2.2 Test Setup

The structural-testing machine in the Reinforced Concrete Laboratory at the Civil Engineering
Department of Al-Azhar University was used to test. One hydraulic jack was used with capacity 100
Ton. Horizontal displacement at mid-point of columns was measured using LVDT, while strains of inner
longitudinal reinforcement and strains of external stirrups were also observed. The vertical loads were
measured at different stages of loading. The test setup is shown in Figure (4).

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Figure 4: Test Setup

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The following observations have been concluded about the behavior of the columns tested:
3.1 Failure Loads
The failure loads of the tested columns were compared with estimated failure loads due to failure
according to the American Code (ACI -440) [1] and the Egyptian Code (ECP-208) [2]. The failure mode
in all specimens occurs in the beam column joint zone as shown in Figure (5). The experimental failure
loads of group 1 and group 2 are shown in Figures (6&7) respectively. From the previous figures, it can
be concluded that the additional longitudinal steel has more effect than additional confinement of beam
column joint.

Figure 5 Cracks Pattern of Group 1 (C1-1&C1-2)

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Failure Load kN--Group1 Failure Load kN--Group2

900 900
850 850
800 800
750 750
700 C0 700 C0
650 650
C 1-1 C 2-1
600 600
C 1-2 C 2-2
550 550
500 500
450 450
400 400

Figure 6: Failure Loads for Group (1) Figure 7: Failure Loads for Group (2)

3.2 Steel Strains

The longitudinal steel strains were obtained from the electrical strain gauges. Figures (8) and (9) show
the load and longitudinal steel strain curves through the load history for group 1 and group 2
respectively.

Figure 8: Load-Steel Strain Curves for Group (1) Figure 9: Load-Steel Strain Curves for Group (2)

3.3 Discussion of Results

The experimental results showed the efficiency of the confinement of the specimen. The increase in
column capacities ranged from 8% to 15% in Group (1), and from 13% to 30% in Group (2). It was
observed that the specimen with additional longitudinal steel showed higher increase in column
capacities than specimen with confinement of beam column zone.

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4. ANALYTICAL MODELS
The specimens were modeled using finite element analysis. The used software was ABAQUS 6.12. The
analysis was based on the non-linear iterative secant stiffness formulation. For compressive and tensile
behavior, Concrete Damaged Plasticity model was used to describe the yield criterion of concrete as
compressive behavior and tension behavior as shown in Figures (10) and (11). The stress strain curve
of reinforcement was plotted as bilinear behavior. Damaged Plasticity model was used to describe the
yield criterion of concrete.
The stress strain curve of reinforcement was plotted as shown in Figure (12).

Figure 10: Axial behavior of plain concrete

Figure 11: Concrete failure surfaces in plane stress.

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Figure 12: Idealized stress strain curve of reinforcement

The simulation of column C0 is shown in Figure (13). The failure was considered in the theoretical
results when the stress in concrete began to decrease after that the strain in concrete began to reach
0.003. The difference between experimental and theoretical results was less than 8%.

Figure 13: simulation of Column C 0

5. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The present study investigated the effect of additional longitudinal steel and the confinement of beam
column joint using internal steel stirrups. The following summarizes the findings of this investigation:

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1. A successful method for increasing the capacity of beam column joint by using additional
longitudinal steel bars.
2. Additional longitudinal steel bars in beam column joint showed an increase of about 15% in column
capacity.
3. A successful method for increasing the capacity of beam column joint by using additional steel
stirrups which made a confinement zone of concrete which has lowest strength.
4. Additional steel stirrups in beam column joint showed an increase of about 30% in column capacity.
5. Finite element models showed good agreement with the experimental results in the capacities and
strain result. The difference between the experimental and theoretical results ranged between 5% to
8%.

REFERENCES
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Commentary, American Concrete Institute.
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Concrete Columns Intersected by Lower-Strength Concrete Slabs”, Struct. Concr., 16(4), 480-
495.
4. A. C. Bianchini, R. E. Woods, and C. E. Kesler. Effect of floor concrete strength on column
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