Ground Motions and Structures - Earthquake Engineering for Structural Design - page 337

Ground Motions and Structures 337

Load

Displacement

Figure 8.35 Load-displacement curves for unconfined and confined reinforced concrete
(after Cusson et al, 1996)

The research activity for producing this new material is presented by Parra-
Montesinos (2005), being obtained using reinforcement with fiber of steel or
polyethylene plus cement, fly ash, flint sand 30-70 and water-reducing admixture. Due
to the increase of construction costs associated to the addition of fibers in concrete, the
high performance reinforced concretes are generally intended to be used only in critical
regions, where the inelastic deformation demands may be large and fiber reinforcement
is required to ensure a satisfactory behavior during an earthquake. In particular, the
excellent tensile behavior of these materials makes them attractive for members with
shear dominated response, as the coupling beam in structural walls (Canbolat et al,
2005).