In 1995, kobe city was struck by a huge ground motion and more than six thousand human lives were lost mainly due to the collapse of buildings. This earthquake clearly showed the need for behavioral research on overall building structures, structural components, structural members and building materials under more realistic boundary conditions than those taken into account thus far.

The seismic performance of a beam-to-column joint has been studied in terms of the shear behavior of a sub-assemblage taken from a part of a plane frame, which subjected to one-directional reversed seismic force. This is due to the current seismic design code requirement stating that the shear strength of the beam-to-column joint for the longitudinally and transversely directional horizontal force are to be checked independently. However, the real earthquake effects on the beam-to-column joints are somewhat different. The longitudinal and transverse directional reversed shear force affects the joint simultaneously. To simulate this load condition, a new test facility was installed at the Structural Testing Laboratory in the Building Research Institute.

This paper presents the general description of the test facility and its application.

^*1 Head, Housing Construction Division, Department of Production Engineering,Building Research Institute.