Cyclic loading tests and shear strength of steel reinforced recycled concrete beam–column inner joints

To study the seismic behavior and shear strength of steel reinforced recycled concrete (SRRC) beam–column inner joints, four 1:2.5 scaled specimens with different replacement percentage of recycled coarse aggregates were fabricated and tested under cyclic lateral loadings. The failure modes of SRRC joints were observed, and the various mechanical indexes of SRRC joints, including hysteresis loops, envelope curves, load carrying capacity, ductility, energy dissipation capacity, and stiffness degradation, were analyzed. The results indicate that the main failure mode of the SRRC joints is the shearing diagonal compression in the core zone of joint. The seismic behavior of the SRRC inner joints degrade only slightly compared with the ordinary steel reinforced concrete inner joints. Based on the test and analysis results, a modified design method is proposed to calculate the nominal shear strength of SRRC inner joints.