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Shear Strength of Plastic Hinge Regions

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Viktor Sigrist Björn Schütte

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SHEAR STRENGTH OF PLASTIC HINGE REGIONS

Sigrist Viktor, Prof. Dr., and Schütte Björn, M.Sc.

Institute of Concrete Structures, Hamburg University of Technology, Germany

Abstract
Ductility is indispensable for the proper functioning of structural concrete since it is necessary for
achieving robust and durable structures. It is common practice to suppose sufficient ductility
through adequate detailing and to apply design procedures without deformation considerations. In
this contribution shear problems of structural concrete continuous beams are treated. On the basis
of up to date models for structural design and assessment, such as the Generalized Stress Field
Approach [Sigrist (2011)] or the fib Model Code 2010 (2012), it is demonstrated how the shear
strength of plastic hinge regions can be investigated. As these procedures include the dependence
of the member's strength on the state of strain they may be used as the basis for more detailed
analyses. For the typical situation of an intermediate support region of a continuous beam the influ-
ence of the strains within the plastic hinge region is investigated; the conditions for and the location
of the so called web crushing failure are determined. The calculation procedure is based on a stress
field analysis. The results are found iteratively and refer to the specific stress field inclination and
stirrup reinforcement ratio, respectively. From this preliminary investigation it can be concluded
that existing code provisions might yield un-conservative results in cases of small beam slender-
ness and large plastic strains. In this ongoing research more theoretical as well as experimental
studies will be included.

Keywords: Design and assessment, plastic hinge regions, shear in beams, stress field analysis,
structural concrete.

1 Introduction
In the course of the assessment of existing structures the redistribution of internal forces and plastic
hinges often play a role and hence, the dependence of the member's strength on the deformations of
the plastic hinge regions might have to be considered. In general, the determination of the flexural
strength of a plastic hinge is straight forward, whereas the calculation of the shear resistance is
more complex. Current code provisions do not treat this type of problem but refer to a proper de-
tailing which shall enable the application of the procedures without deformation considerations.
This approach is uncritical for the design of a new structure; however, it is unsatisfactory for struc-
tural assessment. Up to date models for the structural assessment, such as the Generalized Stress
Field Approach [Sigrist (2011), Sigrist and Hackbarth (2010)] or the fib Model Code (2012), in-
clude strain considerations for determining the member's strength. These models are based on
stress field or strut-and-tie analyses which go back on Ritter (1899). In the following, the most
important aspects of stress field analysis are highlighted; background information may be found
e.g. in Marti (1985), Schlaich and Schäfer (1987) and Muttoni et al. (1997). The relations given
here shall allow the treatment of intermediate support regions of continuous beams, the locations

Viktor Sigrist and Björn Schütte / fib Congress 2014, Mumbai page 1/9
where most likely plastic hinge regions occur in such structures. In the analysis the failure state
attained by crushing of the web concrete is of special interest; the reinforcement quantities are pre-
supposed as sufficient to withstand the respective stresses.

2 Stress Field Analysis

A discontinuous stress field represents a model of the stress state at ultimate. For the analysis of a
girder, nodes and fans are presupposed at locations where concentrated loads are introduced, and
parallel stress-bands (or fans) in the remaining parts of the structure. For the development of a
stress field one important parameter is the inclination θ of the stress bands or concrete struts in the
web, respectively. From experiments and theoretical considerations it is known that this value
ranges from approximately 15° to 45° [e.g. Sigrist (2011)]. Fig. 1 shows the basic elements; in the
context of the present study the support region is investigated more in detail.

support region
q

Fig. 1: Stress field for a two-span girder with node, fan and stress band in the support region

Fig. 2 shows the free body diagrams of a fan and a stress band. For both of these elements the equi-
librium state is depicted. For instance, the uniformly distributed load q is equilibrated by the stir-
rup forces asw fy (with asw denoting the cross-sectional area of a stirrup per unit length, i.e. Asw/sw)
and in the case of the fan of Fig. 2(a) by the support force Br. From moment equilibrium the top
chord forces are found; these vary parabolically and hyperbolically in centred and non-centred fans
and linear in stress bands. Simplifying, it is assumed that the directions of principal stresses and
strains coincide; furthermore, the model of Fig. 2(a) is approximated as a centred fan (Fig. 3).

Ft Ft
(a) (b)

x x
q q

Ft Ft Ft Ft
lmid
z
Node asw ·f y asw,l·f y asw,r ·f y

c
Fc Fc Fc Fc
Br
b ltop=(z+c/2)·cot z·cot

Fig. 2: Free body diagrams of (a) the fan at the support and (b) a parallel stress band

Viktor Sigrist and Björn Schütte / fib Congress 2014, Mumbai page 2/9
The height c and the length b of the node result from Eq. (1) by assuming constant reaction stresses
fc in horizontal and vertical directions.
(q + asw f y ) ⋅ ( z + c / 2) ⋅ cot θ b ⋅ (b + ltop )
b= and c = (1)
bw f c 2z

The geometric quantities are given in Fig. 2 and bw is the width of the web. The average principal
stress in a centred fan or stress band can be determined with
(q + asw f y )
σ2 = ⋅δ (2)
bw sin 2 θ *

The value δ denotes the ratio of the top chord length to the one at mid-depth; in a parallel stress
band δ is 1 and in a fan it is ltop/lmid. The angle θ * refers to the medium inclination of the element.
Even if maximum stresses in a fan are higher than according to Eq. (2), this value is used in the
following. Within the fan the concrete strength increases from top to bottom and varies due to the
geometry and the complex strain state, respectively. As there are no specific experimental results
for this the more conservative strength definition for stress bands is applied also here and hence, it
seems justified to work with this approximation.
It is well established, also in the codes, that there is a lower limit for the inclination θ which
corresponds to stirrup ruptures and/or crack sliding failures. In Sigrist (2011) it is proposed to de-
termine this limit on the basis of the kinematics of the web element and the Tension Chord Model
[Marti et al. (1998)]. This yields the expression
1/2
⎛ ε x − ε2 ⎞
θ min = arctan ⎜ ⎟ (3)
⎝ κ ⋅ ε s max − ε 2 ⎠
At θmin the stirrup strains are limited to κ εsu where εsu denotes the strain at rupture of the steel in the
major crack. The relevant bond coefficients can be computed or, as a first approximation, be taken
as κ = 0.25. It is worth noting that κ depends on the ductility characteristics of the reinforcing steel.
For practical applications instead of Eq. (3) simplified relations can be used, see e.g. fib Model
Code (2012).
The strength of the web concrete depends on the state of strain that can be described with the
help of Mohr's circle of strains. For instance, the principal strain ε1 is found as
ε1 = ε x + ( ε x − ε 2 ) ⋅ cot 2 θ (4)

To capture the failure state, the strain limit at concrete crushing of ε2 = -0.002 may be inserted in
Eq. (4). Finally, based on experimental findings and theoretical considerations [Sigrist (2011)] the
effective concrete compressive strength fce can be calculated to
1/3
⎛ 30 ⎞ 1
f ce = ηc f c ⋅ ⎜ ⎟ ≤ ηc f c with ηc = (5)
⎝ fc ⎠ 1.2 + 55ε 1

In Eq. (5) fc denotes the cylinder strength and ηc the reduction factor accounting for strain influ-
ences; additionally, the compressive strength is reduced for fc > 30 MPa due to the more brittle
behaviour of such concrete types. As mentioned above, it is assumed that these definitions, origi-
nally developed for membrane elements and stress bands, are also applicable on fans.

Viktor Sigrist and Björn Schütte / fib Congress 2014, Mumbai page 3/9
3 Plastic hinge regions
The length of plastic hinge regions depends on many factors, for example the girder's geometry, the
mechanical properties of the steel, the amount of longitudinal reinforcement and the type of load-
ing. In the present study it is assumed that the strains in the longitudinal reinforcement and the me-
chanical reinforcement ratio ωx over the support are known. With this, the length of the plastic
hinge region can be estimated. The calculation is based on a stress field analysis and the Tension
Chord Model.

x pl

Ft

Fu
Fy

xt
q

Ft,fan Ft,band
z/2
x
fan band
asw,r ·f y
z

c
Fc,fan
h* Fc,band
Br
b
h*·cot (z+c/2)·cot z·cot

Fig. 3: Plastic hinge region at an intermediate support and variation of the top chord force

The bending moment resistance at the onset of yielding can be calculated with
⎛ ω ⎞
M y ( x = 0) = ω x ⋅ ⎜ 1 − x ⎟ ⋅ b fl d f c
2
(6)
⎝ 2 ⎠
where x denotes the horizontal coordinate (Fig. 3), bfl the width of the compression flange and d the
effective depth of the beam; in the case of an I-beam it is assumed that the compression zone does
not exceed the depth of the flange. From the equilibrium, the steel stress in the major crack over the
support σs,cr can be determined also for the yielding stage, i.e. for M > My. The corresponding force
in the tension chord Ft follows from
M y ( x = 0) σ s ,cr
Ft ( x = 0) = ⋅ (7)
z fy

Bending failure occurs as soon as σs,cr = fu or Ft (x = 0) is equal to Fu , respectively. The maximum

possible average strain in the longitudinal reinforcement can be determined with help of the Ten-
sion Chord Model. It is less than εsu and depends on the bond coefficient. In general, the length of

Viktor Sigrist and Björn Schütte / fib Congress 2014, Mumbai page 4/9
the plastic hinge xpl is smaller than the expansion of the fan [Sigrist (1995)]. Therefore, only the
variation of the chord force in the fan has to be considered here. For a constant load q the stress
field analysis yields the force
xt2
(q + asw f y ) fan ⋅
Ft = Ft ( x = 0) − 2 (8)
z
at any location xt along the chord, and for Ft = Fy the length of the plastic hinge is found to

( f y As − Ft ( x = 0)) ⋅ 2 z
x pl = b + − (9)
(q + asw f y ) fan

In Eq. (9) the length b has to be added because of the different coordinate systems (Fig. 3).

4 Failure state
From experiments it is known that web crushing failure generally occurs at a certain distance from
the face of the support, an observation which gives reason to check the web width for the so-called
control section as stipulated in current design codes. The validity of this procedure for plastic hinge
regions is examined here. Therefore, failure occurrence in the fan and in the stress band is distin-
guished and the safety margin S
f ce
S= (10)
σ2
is calculated iteratively by considering that for one of the two cases S has to be equal to 1. The
effective concrete compressive strength fce is calculated with Eq. (5) by using Eq. (4) with the aver-
age strain εxm and the average inclinations θ * of the fan (Fig. 4) or θ of the stress band, respec-
tively. The compression stress σ2 is calculated with Eq. (2). Both values refer to the mid-depth of
the girder. For the averaging the integration length is chosen to
1 ⎛ c⎞
xe − xb = ⋅ ⎜ z + ⎟ ⋅ cot θ (11)
2 ⎝ 2⎠
This choice ensures that most of the plastic chord deformations for the strength reduction lie within
the integration length. The same length is used in the stress band, where fce is affected by plastic
strains only a little, and σ2 is independent of the length. The average strain in longitudinal direction
is
xe

∫ ε xt dx
1 xb
ε xm = ⋅ (12)
2 xe − xb

and depends on the length of the plastic hinge xpl (Fig. 4). Note that the strain at the mid-depth of
the girder is half of the chord strain εxt if a linear distribution is assumed and (simplifying) the bot-
tom chord strain is set to 0. The average stress σ2m can be calculated on the basis of Eq. (2) to
xe

∫σ 2 dθ f
σ 2m =
xb
(13)
xe − xb

Viktor Sigrist and Björn Schütte / fib Congress 2014, Mumbai page 5/9
For the calculation of the average stress the angle θf = θ ** at the location x = b has to be known
(Fig. 4). From geometry this is easily found and depends on the inclination of the stress band θ :
⎛ z c ⎞
⎜ 2+ 2+h
*
⎟
θ = arctan ⎜
**
⎟ (14)
⎜ xb + h cot θ − b ⎟
*

⎝ ⎠
The calculation of the S-values requires the knowledge of the variation of shear forces along the
girder. For the two-span girder of Fig. 1 with constant load this is taken into account via the slen-
derness of the girder l/z.

V max
-
+
V band
V max
l

x pl

xt,pl

+ xt,el

xt,pl

+
fan band
z x
** *
z

c
xe-xb xe-xb
b
h*·cot (z+c/2)·cot z·cot

Fig. 4: Plastic hinge region at an intermediate support and assumed state of strain

The inclination θ depends on the mechanical stirrup reinforcement ratio ωz = Asw /(swbw)⋅fy/fc and the
load stage. In the computation, the load q and the ωz-value are iteratively found for a chosen incli-
nation. Two examples of such calculations are shown in Fig. 5: The one refers to a plastic hinge
region and the other to a support region with the longitudinal reinforcement remaining elastic. In
each diagram two curves corresponding to the S-values for the fan and the stress band are plotted.
As mentioned above, S = 1 indicates failure in the respective element. Additionally, the lower limit
of the stress band inclination θmin according to Eq. (3) is plotted as well.
For the example a concrete cylinder strength of 50 MPa, a strain εxt,el of 0.002, a slenderness l/z
of 25, steel of ductility class B with ft /fy = 1.08 and εsu = 50⋅10-3 and a ωx-value of the longitudinal
reinforcement of 0.25 are chosen. The maximum strain εxt,pl at the support differs: In the case of the
plastic hinge with εxt,pl = 0.018 (Fig. 5a) the change from stress band to fan failures is at an inclina-
tion of 29°; this corresponds to a mechanical stirrup reinforcement ratio of ωz = 0.111. For the ex-

Viktor Sigrist and Björn Schütte / fib Congress 2014, Mumbai page 6/9
ample with εxt,pl = 0.0025 (Fig. 5b) i.e. without plastic chord deformations, the change is at an in-
clination of 35.5° and a mechanical stirrup reinforcement ratio of ωz = 0.18 . Since the mechanical
reinforcement ratio relates to a certain load q, it is worth noting that the two cases refer to quite
different load stages.

(a) (b)

1.5

1
S=fce /σ 2 [-]

fan min
min
stress band
0.5
ε xt,pl=0.018 ε xt,pl=0.0025

0
20 25 30 35 40 45 20 25 30 35 40 45
Inclination [°] Inclination [°]

Fig. 5: Safety margins (S-curves) of the fan and the adjacent stress band for (a) a plastic hinge region and (b)
a support region with the longitudinal reinforcement remaining elastic

5 Parameter study
To examine the influence of magnitude of the plastic strains a parameter study is carried out. In this
study strains εxt,pl and εxt,el are varied. The inclination for which the location of the failure changes
is denoted as θf,b and the corresponding mechanical reinforcement ratio as ωf,b. As an additional
parameter the slenderness l/z is investigated; note that l/z = 1000 means an (almost) constant shear
force along the girder. Because of their minor influence the strength parameters and the geometric
quantities are kept constant.
The results of the study clearly illustrate that the magnitude of the plastic strains and the slen-
derness of the girder (or the variation of shear forces) play an important role. It can be observed
that for a higher slenderness the inclination θf,b increases as well. On the other hand, θf,b decreases
with large plastic strains. Furthermore, it can be seen that for a small slenderness and large plastic
strains θf,b might lie below θmin, indicating that rupture of the stirrups and/or crack sliding failures
are decisive. Overall, the most important finding of the study is that in plastic hinge regions the
failure location might shift closer to the support or the load introduction point. Hence, for such
cases the assumption of a control section at a certain distance from the maximum shear force has to
be re-examined.

Viktor Sigrist and Björn Schütte / fib Congress 2014, Mumbai page 7/9
 εxt,el = 0.002 εxt,el = 0.001
θmin = 24.5° θmin = 22.6°

l/z εxt,pl [⋅10-3] θf,b [°] ωfb l / z εxt,pl [⋅10-3] θf,b [°] ωfb
12 2.5 27.5 0.096 12 2.5 25 0.081
12 8 26 0.083 12 8 23.5 0.069
12 12 24.5 0.071 12 12 21.5 0.054
12 18 21.5 0.049 12 18 15 0.018
15 2.5 31 0.131 15 2.5 29.5 0.123
15 8 29.5 0.116 15 8 28 0.108
15 12 28 0.101 15 12 26.5 0.094
15 18 25.5 0.079 15 18 23.5 0.069
20 2.5 34 0.163 20 2.5 33 0.161
20 8 32 0.141 20 8 31 0.139
20 12 30.5 0.126 20 12 29 0.118
20 18 28 0.101 20 18 26.5 0.094
30 2.5 36.5 0.192 30 2.5 35.5 0.190
30 8 34.5 0.169 30 8 33.5 0.167
30 12 32.5 0.147 30 12 31.5 0.144
30 18 30 0.120 30 18 28.5 0.113
1000 2,5 40.5 0.240 1000 2,5 40 0.245
1000 8 38 0.210 1000 8 37 0.208
1000 12 36 0.186 1000 12 35 0.184
1000 18 33 0.152 1000 18 32 0.150

Table 1: Results of the parameter study: fc = 50 MPa, ωx = 0.25, z = 0.8 m, bw = 0.2 m, bfl = 2bw and steel B.

6 Summary and conclusion

In this contribution it is demonstrated how the shear strength of plastic hinge regions can be inves-
tigated. The basis for this is the Generalized Stress Field Approach with which the dependence of
the member's strength on the state of strain can be considered. For the typical situation of an inter-
mediate support region of a continuous beam the influence of the strains within the plastic hinge
region is studied; the conditions for and the location of the so called web crushing failure are de-
termined.
From this preliminary investigation it can be concluded that existing code provisions might
yield un-conservative results in cases of small beam slenderness and large plastic strains. In this
ongoing research more theoretical as well as experimental studies will be included.

Viktor Sigrist and Björn Schütte / fib Congress 2014, Mumbai page 8/9
 References

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Kaufmann, W. (1998), Strength and Deformations of Structural Concrete Subjected to In-Plane
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Zürich, Switzerland, 147 pp.
Marti, P. (1985), Basic Tools of Reinforced Concrete Beam Design, ACI Structural Journal, V. 82,
No.1, Jan.-Feb. 1985, pp. 46-56
Marti, P.; Alvarez, M.; Kaufmann, W.; Sigrist, V. (1998), Tension Chord Model for Structural
Concrete, Structural Engineering International, Vol.8, No.4, pp. 287-298
Muttoni, A.; Schwartz, J.; Thürlimann, B. (1997), Design of Concrete Structures with Stress Fields,
Birkhäuser, 1997, 141 pp.
Schlaich, J.; Schäfer, K. (1987), Towards a Consistent Design of Structural Concrete, PCI Journal,
May-June 1987, pp. 75-150
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of the Third International fib Congress 2010 and Annual PCI Convention, Washington, DC,
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Structural Journal, Vol. 108, No.4, pp.479-487
Sigrist, V.; Marti, P. (1995), Versuche zum Verformungsvermögen von Stahlbetonträgern (Tests on
the Deformation Capacity of Structural Concrete Girders), IBK Report No. 202, Institute of
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Sigrist, V. (1995), Zum Verformungsvermögen von Stahlbetonträgern (On the Deformation
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Viktor Sigrist and Björn Schütte / fib Congress 2014, Mumbai page 9/9

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