FINITE ELEMENT MODELING OF REINFORCED CONCRETE BEAM-COLUMN CONNECTIONS. DISCUSSION AND CLOSURE

A discussion of a paper with the aforementioned title by P.S. Baglin and R.H. Scott, published in this journal (Volume 97, Number 6, November-December 2000), is presented. The discusser commends the authors on their effort to investigate the behavior of external beam-column connections with nonlinear finite element models, and also supports their attempt to evaluate the effects of the main variables such as the column axial load on the joint behavior and joint capacity. The discusser, drawing on experience from a combination of experimental and analytical studies on bridge joints, provides comments on several issues relating to the authors' research. Closure from the authors is also provided.