Seismic Assessment of Non-Engineering Defects in Reinforced Concrete Structures with Scaled-Down Shake Table Test

Reinforced concrete (RC) frames have been an indispensable part of the construction industry for several decades because they resist both gravity and lateral loads such that the entire structure achieves a certain level of performance against seismic loads as per the performance-based design philosophy. The construction procedures for RC frames often encounter many non-engineering defects, especially in developing countries where the quality assurance check is cumbersome and usually ignored. Among these non-engineering defects, the presence of insufficient rebar splice length can affect the seismic performance of RC structures and can compromise their integrity. To this aim, this research gives new insight into the effects of inadequate rebar splice length on the seismic behavior of RC frames. For that, the experimental approach was adopted by using the micro-concrete concept because it demonstrates a simple, cheap, and evident experimental method to assess the seismic performance of properly designed RC frames. The shake table test was conducted to study the behavior of two scaled RC frames (1/16 scale): one standard frame and the other with an inadequate rebar splice length. The experimental result demonstrated that the frame with insufficient rebar splice length had a significant capacity reduction, and the structure was extremely susceptible to seismic loading conditions. Furthermore, the crack initiation and propagation in the standard frame were at the beam-column joints and the base connections. However, in the defective frame, the presence of insufficient rebar splice length altered the frame’s damage points and led to the collapse of the entire structure at the location of the splice. In this way, this study evaluates the impact of high-risk structural components due to non-engineering defects. This study can be used to spread awareness among the construction workers and site engineers who are responsible for quality assurance and quality control on-site to circumvent non-engineering defects and associated strength issues.