A PARAMETRIC STUDY OF CODE-BASED PERFORMANCE LIMITS FOR WIDE BEAMS

In this study, we compared the performance limits of building codes and assessed whether these limits could be applied to wide beams. We performed a parametric study, investigating the longitudinal reinforcement ratio, beam width, steel class, and type and spacing of the transverse reinforcement. We obtained the following results from these analyses: Increasing the longitudinal reinforcement ratio reduced the deformation limit corresponding to code-based performance limits. Changing the confinement properties significantly affected the TEC 2007 and ASCE/SEI 41 limits. The performance limits defined by EC8 and ASCE/SEI 41 had similar corresponding plastic deformations, lower than those corresponding to the TEC 2007 strain-based damage limits. The results show that assessing the performance of wide beams by using the performance limits from different codes could produce contradictory results.