During the energy-based seismic design procedure for structures, structural members need to be designed based on hysteretic energy demand, and understanding the effects of the loading history and reinforcement conditions on energy dissipation capacity of structural members is the basis for this step. In this paper, deterioration characteristics of energy dissipation capacity for 22 reinforced concrete beam specimens with different stirrup ratios and reinforcement ratios under various displacement reversals were investigated. The results show that, under the constant amplitude displacement cycles, increasing stirrup ratio of beams can delay the energy dissipation capacity deterioration, and the delay rate is decreased with cyclic amplitude. The effect of reinforcement ratio on deterioration characteristics of energy dissipation capacity lacks regularity. Relative to the stirrup ratio and reinforcement ratio, cyclic amplitude effect is more obvious and more regular. The smaller cyclic amplitude would lead to the faster decay process of deterioration and the greater residual energy dissipation capacity. Under the variable-amplitude displacement cycles, the remaining energy dissipation capacity in a forthcoming displacement cycle is dependent on both the relative relationship between the maximal displacement cycle and the energy dissipated along the completed displacement path. Plastic energy dissipation capacity of reinforced concrete beams are both displacement path dependent and cumulative hysteretic energy dependent. Based on this double-dependency rule, a method was developed in order to predict the energy dissipation capacity of reinforced concrete beams subjected to random variable amplitude displacement cycles simulating severe seismic excitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]