Dataset: A Universal Plastic Hinge Length for Reinforced Concrete Walls

This dataset is compilation of numerical and experimental reinforced concrete walls and corresponding parameters used for a plastic hinge analysis. The plastic hinge length (L_p) is the primary focus of this research. Two Microsoft Excel files contain all the information for the numerical and experimental wall parameter values and resulting L_p values. A pdf file contains all of the reference list corresponding to the experimental wall specimens used for this research. MATLAB files are available for reproducing the figures produced in the research paper.

The Abstract of the corresponding paper is given below:

When using a plastic hinge analysis, an estimate of the ultimate displacement capacity of reinforced concrete structural wall buildings is highly dependent on the assumed plastic hinge length. A plastic hinge length equal to 0.5 times the wall length has typically been regarded to provide a safe and lower bound estimate and has subsequently been used in building codes internationally. Recent numerical and experimental research has shown that a plastic hinge length of 0.5 times the wall length can give an overestimate of the actual length, which would provide a false indication of the ultimate displacement capacity of the wall. The many empirical plastic hinge length expressions available have been derived using a limited range of design parameters or specific wall sections. This research uses a large database of planar and non-planar experimental and numerical research results with a wide range of design parameters to investigate the plastic hinge length and efficacy of some of the empirical expressions that exist in the literature. It is shown that a plastic hinge length of 0.5 times the wall length largely overestimates the actual length found from the database of walls. A simple expression is derived here that can be used by designing engineers to calculate a conservative estimate of the plastic hinge length of planar and non-planar reinforced concrete walls.