Drift Capacity of Reinforced Concrete Columns

The current seismic design philosophy allows nonlinear behavior of the structure to reduce strength requirements. This implies that the structure must be able to retain its integrity under cycles of displacement into the nonlinear range. The structure has to be tough. Evaluation of experimental results from 15 series of tests reported by various investigators has shown that the limiting drift capacity of a reinforced concrete column proportioned to resist earthquake effects through energy dissipation in the nonlinear range of response may be determined simply by considering two parameters: 1) the aspect ratio, and 2) the transverse reinforcement index.