| Collapse and severe damage of reinforced concrete structures during strong earthquakes has been a major concern for structural engineers. Current and past research has been based on yielding steel reinforcement in order to dissipate the earthquake energy. This meant the preserving of lives, but at the expense of structures, which would be severely damaged. In this report, the super-elastic behavior of shape memory alloys, in particular Nitinol, was used in doing preliminary tests to observe the extent of the ability of this alloy to confine concrete, decrease and minimize residual crack sizes in concrete, and to recover and reduce permanent deformations under cyclic loads. Eight small-scale beams and 11 cubes were tested. It was found that SMA reinforcement reduced the permanent beam deflection by more than 75% but did not reduce permanent damage in the cubes. |
