Reinforced concrete wide-beam construction vs. conventional construction: Resistance to lateral earthquake loads

Experiments and analyses were conducted to address concerns about performance of reinforced concrete connections with shallow, wide beams subjected to lateral earthquake loading and to compare behaviour of wide beam connections to that of conventional connections. Two wide beam-column-slab connections and one conventional beam-column-slab connection were subjected to cycles of reversing lateral displacements up to 5% drift. The conventional beam and wide beam connections exhibited similar overall load-displacement behaviour, with similar beam plastic hinge development. The wide beam connections dissipated almost as much energy as the conventional beam connection and had greater slab participation and less joint and beam shear cracking than the conventional beam connection. Experimentally determined wide beam connection stiffness was closer to the conventional beam connection stiffness than had been predicted. Refined models were developed, with features such as rigid end offsets for wide beam connections, to better represent observed behaviour. Nonlinear models were also developed that accurately captured differences in energy dissipation as well as stiffness.