Design codes of diverse countries include capacity design criteria for seismic design of concrete beams and columns. These criteria aim to avoid fragile failure modes which can cause the structure to collapse due to mechanism formation. The capacity design criteria is based on increasing the bending resistance of the supports with respect to that of the beams, and increase the shear resistance of the columns and beams in proportion, improving the ductility of the structure. By applying these criteria, plastic failure is avoided at the supports rather than at the beams and shear (fragile) failure before failure due to bending, is also avoided.
The tendency of the diverse codes, with regards to seismic construction, is to use these criteria by applying bending overresistance factors to the supports with respect to the beams, and shear overresitance factors with respect to the bending resistance for columns and beams.
The 2013.e version of CYPECAD implements the capacity design criteria for bending at the supports in accordance with Annex 10 of the EHE-08 code. The remaining checks of the EHE-08 code and checks of other design codes will be implemented in upcoming program updates.
