Performance and Design of Eccentric Reinforced Concrete Beam-Column Connections Subjected to Seismic Lateral Load Reversals

Reinforced concrete (RC) frame connections with the beam centerline offset in plan from the column centerline are commonly used in practice, especially in perimeter RC building frames. A few design provisions have been suggested for this type of eccentric RC beam-column connection in both the state-of-the-art report entitled "Recommendations for Design of Beam-Column Connections in Monolithic Reinforced Concrete Structures" and in the current "Building Code Requirements for Structural Concrete and Commentary". However, much recent laboratory testing and other analysis of this sort of connection have not necessarily been fully reflected in those design provisions. Therefore, this paper first summarizes all of the emerging research becoming available on the subject of behavior of eccentric (edge and corner) RC beam-column connections and then uses it to critically examine current design recommendations. A particular emphasis is placed on procedures for estimating the nominal joint shear strength of connections of varying eccentricity, but other aspects of their structural behavior (including joint shear deformation, energy dissipation, slab effects, and numerical modeling) are also examined and analyzed in this paper.