Experiments on ductile and non-ductile reinforced concrete frames under static and cyclic loading

The full range behavior ductile and non-ductile frames have been evaluated under monotonic and cyclic loading. The one fourth scale Reinforced Concrete square frames are experimentally tested subjected to static cyclic loading for three cases and monotonic loading for one case. The parameters are varied as method introducing ductility to the frame by using conventional concrete, adding 1% of steel fibres by volume of concrete at hinging zones and self-compacting concrete with fibres at hinging zones. The results compared with respect to initial stiffness, degradation of stiffness, first cracking load, ultimate loads, degradation of load carrying capacity, energy absorption and ductility factors characteristics. The behavior of frames tested under cyclic loading have revealed that there is a positive trend in improvement of ductility of frames when fibrous concrete is used along with self-compacting concrete. Also, the behavior of conventional reinforced concrete frame against monotonic loading has been studied numerically using commercial finite element tool ABAQUS/Standard and compared with the experiments are found in good agreement.