Computer aided design of columns under biaxial bending

Abstract

The equations for design of rectangular reinforced concrete columns are rarely used in actual design due to their mathematical complexities. Rather, design aids in the form of tables or charts, that are sometimes inadequate to complete a design, are employed by designers. This study covers the design of rectangular reinforced concrete tied columns under the action of axial load and uniaxial or biaxial bending moments according to the requirements of (ACI 318M-83), Building Code Requirements for Reinforced Concrete (1). A microcomputer program is developed to perform necessarry computations. The program is designed interactively and is based on iteration and internal halving techniques. It performs the design and analysis of columns with known or unknown cross sectional dimensions. When dimensions are not known, acceptable ranges for them must be fed into the computer upon which the program establishes its own cross sectional dimensions using the maximum range given for the reinforcement ratio.