Reinforced Concrete Structures

Many aspects of the design of reinforced concrete structures to resist earthquakes apply to structures of any material or combination of materials. This chapter discusses certain aspects that may not be covered elsewhere in this book and emphasizes others that apply directly to reinforced concrete buildings and bridges. Since recent earthquakes [Seible et al., 1997; MCEER, 2000] have demonstrated repeatedly that the key elements for buildings and bridges are

structural walls

and

columns

, respectively, both structural walls and bridge columns will be the focus of this chapter.