State-of-art summary of the strength hierarchy assessment and its applications

Strength hierarchy assessment is a method developed to be able to identify the governing failure mechanisms at reinforced concrete (RC) beam-column joints. The main failures that can be identified in this method are: i) beam plastic hinge; ii) column plastic hinge/shear failure; iii) beam-column joint shear failure. Through the identification of the governing failure mode in a joint, the validity of the capacity design principles can be checked for the considered RC beam-column joint. The obtained observations can then be used in finding the most optimal repair/strengthening application. This method has been going through updates and developments in the last decade and new applications have emerged. In this article, a state-of-the-art summary of the procedure is reported with its most recent updates as well as its practical engineering applications.