Cyclic Capacity of Dowel Connections

Dowel connections are most frequently used to join different types of precast elements in RC precast industrial buildings. Such connections are typically subjected to the following types of potential failure mechanism: (a) local failure characterized by the simultaneous yielding of the dowel and crushing of the surrounding concrete, and (b) global failure, characterized by spalling of the concrete between the dowel and the edge of the column or the beam. The strength corresponding to these two types of failure has been estimated using different procedures available in the literature with significantly different accuracy. While the strength corresponding to the local failure is estimated quite precisely, the strength corresponding to the global failure is typically considerably underestimated. The new procedure for the estimation of the global failure is proposed and described in the paper. It was evaluated based on the strut-and-tie model.