抄録
The plastic hinge length is one of the important factors to evaluate the ductility capacity of reinforced concrete bridge columns that fail in flexure at the bottom under seismic loading. Since it is known from experimental studies that the plastic hinge length has strong correlation to the buckling length of longitudinal reinforcement, a series of FEM analyses was conducted to simulate the buckling behavior of longitudinal reinforcement of reinforced concrete bridge columns under the seismic loading. In the analyses, the effects of idealization of resistance of cover concrete and transverse reinforcement against buckling were investigated. Based on a regression analysis of the results from FEM analyses, a simplified equation to evaluate the plastic hinge length was proposed.
