Plastic hinge length of reinforced concrete columns subjected to both far‐fault and near‐fault ground motions having forward directivity

In a strong earthquake, a standard reinforced concrete (RC) column may develop plastic deformations in regions often termed as plastic hinge regions. A plastic hinge is basically an energy dampening device that dampens energy through the plastic rotation of a rigid column connection, which triggers redistribution of bending moments. The formation of a plastic hinge in an RC column in regions that experience inelastic actions depends on the characteristics of the earthquakes as well as the column details. Recordings from recent earthquakes have provided evidence that ground motions in the near field of a rupturing fault can contain a large energy or ‘directivity’ pulse. A directivity pulse occurs when the propagation of the fault proceeds at nearly the same rate as the shear wave velocity. This pulse is seen in the forward direction of the rupture and can cause considerable damage during an earthquake, especially to structures with natural periods that are close to those of the pulse. In the present paper, 1316 inelastic time‐history analyses have been performed to predict the nonlinear behaviour of RC columns under both far‐fault and near‐fault ground motions. The effects of axial load, height over depth ratio and amount of longitudinal reinforcement, as well as different characteristics of earthquakes, were evaluated analytically by finite element methods and the results were compared with corresponding experimental data. Based on the results, simple expressions were proposed that can be used to estimate plastic hinge length of RC columns subjected to both far‐fault and near‐fault earthquakes that contain a forward‐directivity effect. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.