SEISMIC DESIGN CHARACTERIZATION OF RC SPECIAL MOMENT RESISTING FRAMES IN PAKISTAN-FIELD SURVEY TO LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS

This study was undertaken to study the influence of construction deficiencies on hysteretic behavior of exterior beam-column connections. Building stock survey was conducted in five major cities of Pakistan for identification and quantification of material and detailing disparities between design specifications and construction practices. The effect of these disparities was studied using quasi-static cyclic testing on two exterior beam-column connections; EJ-1A (code-compliant) with no deficiencies and EJ-2A (non-compliant) incorporating all identified deficiencies. Damage patterns and hysteretic force-deformation behavior of these models is presented and the performance of the two specimens is compared. The study found that moderate to high deficiencies exist between design specifications and construction practices for the construction of RC buildings in Pakistan. The study also concluded that significant loss of strength and ductility is observed between code-compliant and non-code-compliant exterior beam-column connections subjected to reverse cyclic loading.