Experimental and Analytical Study on Reinforcing Steels with Threaded Mechanical Couplers under Monotonic and Cyclic Loadings

Abstract

This study performs the experimental and analytical investigation on the effect of mechanical couplers on the axial behavior of spliced reinforcing bars. The effect of unsupported-length-to-bar-diameter (L/D) ratios on the monotonic and cyclic behavior was observed. The test configurations in monotonic tension, compression, and cyclic tests included reinforcing bars with and without threaded mechanical couplers. Specimens with mechanical couplers have higher strength in compression than the bars without couplers, especially when L/D is less than 10. The procedure for determining the effective unsupported length for bars with a mechanical splice was proposed. And the observation on the energy dissipation confirmed the proposed method.  The calculated hysteretic loops using the modified unsupported length model of the bar with mechanical splice agreed well with the test result.