Experimental Verification of Slender Reinforced Concrete Columns Design

Abstract

The columns have been part of the constructions since the beginning of the buildings and have retained their design and construction importance to the present. The advantage of using more slender elements are less material consumption and more usable space in the interiors. The continuous improvement of the building materials and the use of hybrid structural elements leads to the downsizing of the structural elements. The aim of this article is the nonlinear analysis of the slender rein-forced concrete columns and the loss of stability verified by the experimental tests. Nonlinear calculations can be considered as the most accurate calculation option for the load bearing structural elements. On the other hand, the effect of the “black box” has been, and will be the cause of a large number of building defects. In the Eurocode 2 in chapter 5.8.6 of the European Concrete Design Standard, there is a possibility of using the general nonlinear method in practice, even for the com-pressed elements. In the design of the slender structures, the influence of second-order theory is a very important part of the design. In this publication are described theoretical and experimental analyses of the slender columns, that failed due to loss of stability inside of their design interaction diagram - much sooner than the critical cross-sections reached its resistance. As a part of the experimental preparations, reinforced concrete columns were designed, based on numerous numerical analyses. Later, the chosen columns were tested in the laboratories of TU Wien in Vienna. Experimental verification is one of the main parts of my dissertation thesis.