Quality control & numerical nonlinear material modelling for the load-bearing capacity of slender reinforced concrete columns - comparison of safety formats

Modern codes allow advanced nonlinear formats to calculate the bearing-buckling capacity of slender reinforced concrete column elements.In a previous part of this paper series, investigations of a priori collaborative Round-Robin tests of numerical simulations showed that the load capacity of slender single columns obtained by Nonlinear Finite Element Methods (NLFEM) is significantly overestimated when compared to experimental values.On the other side, the simplified formats adopted by design codes (e.g.nominal curvature-based method) provide too conservative results concerning the experimental derived bearing buckling capacity.The investigations are divided into two parts.Part I considers the experiments' findings and the nonlinear modelling.Part II aims twofold: (i) provide a quantitative comparison of the Eurocode column design rules with the international design regulations from the USA, China, Japan, and Canada concerning the safety and design format and (ii) identify possible strengths and weaknesses in the different approaches.