Ductility of Prefabricated Cage Reinforced Concrete Beams: Analytical Study

Experimental studies have reported that confinement provided by Prefabricated Cage effectively improves the flexural strength, ductility and deformation characteristics of Prefabricated Cage Reinforced Composite (PCRC) Beams. This paper presents an analytical solution to predict the curvature ductility of PCRC beams. An equation for ductility is proposed in terms of ultimate concrete strain and yield strength of steel. Experimental results from literature were employed to validate the analytical results. The findings show that the theoretical analyses are in good agreement with the test data. The theoretical curvature ductility factor has a reasonably good agreement with the experimental results, which demonstrates the present closed-form solution is simple yet accurate. The analyses also show the deformation characteristics of PCRC beams is significantly influenced by the percentage of tension steel.