The majority of existing reinforced concrete (RC) buildings were built prior to the introduction of seismic codes.
As observed in various recent earthquakes, due to their lack of structural capacity and ductility such structures
are very vulnerable and have suffered considerable damage. The number of cyclic tests that have been carried
out to investigate the behaviour of RC components with detailing typical of these buildings is very limited. Such
tests are very relevant for seismic vulnerability assessment purposes. In this paper, a low-cycle fatigue testing
campaign on RC columns and connections specifically devised to investigate various physical parameters that
affect damage development, is presented. The campaign consists of 19 columns and 7 beam-column connections.
Some of the preliminary results and observations are presented and discussed