Experimental Research on The Damage Indices of Reinforced Concrete Beam-Column Connections of Rail Bridges With High-Strength Reinforcements Subjected to Cyclic Loading

Nowadays, because of the economical considerations, the application of the high-strength materials has been taken into serious considerations by several researchers. High-strength reinforcement application has many benefits like: decreasing material consumption, project time and peripheral costs. However, due to some of their repercussions such as: decreasing the overall ductility, energy absorption and increasing crack widths, their applications are limited in seismic prone areas. In this research, the effect of high-strength reinforcements on the different types of damage indices in the beam-column connections of rail bridges (designed based on the special seismic instructions) are studied experimentally under cyclic loading. Experimental results show that the application of high-strength reinforcements expedites the failure process of the specimens. Moreover, the results show that the energy absorption of the specimens decreases by using high-strength reinforcements either. However, the effects of high-strength reinforcements as stirrups has less repercussions than the case of using them as longitudinal reinforcements.