Flexibility modeling of reinforced concrete concentric frame joints

The intersections between beams and columns in a reinforced concrete building structure are called frame joints. It is a region with significant bending stiffness but subjected to large shear stresses. Appropriate modeling of the flexibility of reinforced concrete frames is essential to its design, in service limit states as well as in ultimate limit states. It has been shown, theoretically as well as experimentally, that the influence of joint flexibility may account for 20% of total structural lateral displacement. Models using only bar elements and rotational springs are proposed to consider the joint flexibility in linear analyses of building structures. In order to validate the proposed model, comparisons with experimental results found in the literature are made. Finally, the results of second order analyses using the proposed model are compared with those obtained by finite elements.