Investigation of Plastic Hinge Length in Reinforced Concrete Columns on Column Behavior

In reinforced concrete buildings in case of a possible earthquake, the buildings slamp as they lost their horizontal stability because of hinging of column ends. The assumptions for plastic hinge lengths are present during project stage of reinforced concrete buildings. According to Turkish Earthquake Regulations, although plastic hinge length is determined to be 0.5h, it's known that plastic hinge length is determined via various formulas in some other regulations all over the world. In reinforced concrete columns, it's necessary to indicate the effect of plastic hinge length on the column behavior. For this purpose, pushover analysis of 5 column samples having different plastic hinge lengths was performed with non-linear analysis program. As a result of pushover analysis, situations of plastic hinges formed in columns and their load-displacement curves were determined. The graphs and the data were compared and the results were discussed.