Hysteretic Model for Shear-Critical Reinforced Concrete Columns

A continuous and smooth hysteretic model for shear-critical reinforced concrete (RC) columns was identified and calibrated based on an efficient stochastic search technique and an experimental database consisting of 30 shear-critical RC columns. The inelastic restoring force of shear-critical columns was described by the Bouc-Wen-Baber-Noori (BWBN) model to produce the requisite strength and stiffness degradation as well as pinching effect. Meanwhile, the backward Euler and Newton-Raphson schemes were adopted to determine the inelastic restoring force by solving the ordinary differential equations. Then a differential evolution (DE) algorithm was utilized to identify the control parameters of the BWBN hysteretic model based on an experimental database consisting of 30 shear-critical rectangular columns under cyclic loading. Finally, prediction equations for the BWBN model parameters were developed in terms of four structural physical parameters. The capability and accuracy of the calibrated hysteretic model were demonstrated by comparison with the available experimental data.