SEISMIC SHEAR STRENGTH OF REINFORCED CONCRETE COLUMNS. DISCUSSIONS AND CLOSURE

Two discussions of a paper with the aforementioned title by Priestley, Verma, and Xiao, published in this journal (Volume 120, Number 8, August 1994), are presented. Both discussions note differences in the experimental equations, which are supposed to be based on American Concrete Institute-American Society of Civil Engineers (ACI-ASCE) Committee 426 provisions. All discussers question the use of 0.8 section diameter for effective depth for circular sections based on the ACI-ASCE Committee 426 approach. Discussers Aschheim and Moehle ask several questions regarding the relevance of the experimental data set and draw attention to a study by Iwasaki (1985). Discusser Ramirez asserts that it may be premature to consider implementation of the authors' shear model in building design where assessment of member performance is still relatively crude. Discussions are followed by closure from the authors.