BEHAVIOR OF LAP-SPLICED REINFORCING BARS EMBEDDED IN HIGH-STRENGTH CONCRETE. DISCUSSION

A discussion of a paper with the aforementioned title by A. Azizinamini, R. Pavel, E. Hatfield, and S.K. Ghosh, published in this journal (Volume 96, Number 5, September-October 1999), is presented. The paper fails to conclude what amount of transverse reinforcement may be required to provide an adequate ductility of a reinforced concrete beam with tensile spliced bars. The discussion maintains that the displacement-ductility ratio depends mainly on the slip of the spliced bars in a concrete beam. The slip of the spliced bars depends on different parameters such as rib geometries of bars, minimum concrete cover, ratios, bottom cover and spliced bars spacing, minimum cover over bar diameter ratio, bond stress distribution over the splice bars, and the amount of transverse reinforcement. Therefore, to determine a required amount of stirrups to provide a certain displacement-ductility ratio, it is necessary to account for all of the former parameters.