• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.7 no.5
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• pp.691-704
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• 2014

Reinforced concrete (RC) shear walls are commonly used for building structures to resist seismic loading. While the RC shear walls can have a high load-carrying capacity, they tend to fail in a brittle mode under shear, accompanied by forming large diagonal cracks and bond splitting between concrete and steel reinforcement. Improving seismic performance of shear walls has remained a challenge for researchers all over the world. Engineered Cementitious Composite (ECC), featuring incredible ductility under tension, can be a promising material to replace concrete in shear walls with improved performance. Currently, the application of ECC to large structures is limited due to the lack of the proper constitutive models especially under shear. In this paper, a new Cyclic Softening Membrane Model for reinforced ECC is proposed. The model was built upon the Cyclic Softening Membrane Model for reinforced concrete by (Hsu and Mo 2010). The model was then implemented in the OpenSees program to perform analysis on several cases of shear walls under seismic loading. The seismic response of reinforced ECC compared with RC shear walls under monotonic and cyclic loading, their difference in pinching effect and energy dissipation capacity were studied. The modeling results revealed that reinforced ECC shear walls can have superior seismic performance to traditional RC shear walls.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.7 no.5
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• pp.877-890
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to present adequate modeling solutions for squat and slender RC walls. ASCE41-13 (American Society of Civil Engineers) specifies that the aspect ratios of height to width for the RC walls affect the hysteresis response. Thus, this study performed non-linear analysis subjected to cyclic loading using two different macroscopic models: one of macroscopic models represents flexural failure of RC walls (Shear Wall Element model) and the other (General Wall Element model) reflects diagonal shear failure occurring in the web of RC walls. These analytical results were compared to previous experimental studies for a slender wall (> aspect ratio of 3.0) and a squat wall (= aspect ratio of 1.0). For the slender wall, the difference between the two macroscopic models was negligible, but the squat wall was significantly affected by parameters for shear behavior in the modeling method. For accurate performance evaluation of RC buildings with squat walls, it would be reasonable to use macroscopic models that give consideration to diagonal shear.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.77-98
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• 2004

This paper presents a numerical model for simulating the nonlinear response of reinforced concrete (RC) shear walls subject to cyclic loadings. The material behavior of cracked concrete is described by an orthotropic constitutive relation with tension-stiffening and compression softening effects defining equivalent uniaxial stress-strain relation in the axes of orthotropy. Especially in making analytical predictions for inelastic behaviors of RC walls under reversed cyclic loading, some influencing factors inducing the material nonlinearities have been considered. A simple hysteretic stress-strain relation of concrete, which crosses the tension-compression region, is defined. Modification of the hysteretic stress-strain relation of steel is also introduced to reflect a pinching effect depending on the shear span ratio and to represent an average stress distribution in a cracked RC element, respectively. To assess the applicability of the constitutive model for RC element, analytical results are compared with idealized shear panel and shear wall test results under monotonic and cyclic shear loadings.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.385-398
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• 2023

The parameters of the multiple-vertical-line-element model (MVLEM) of reinforced concrete (RC) shear walls are often empirically determined, which causes large simulation errors. To improve the simulation accuracy of the MVLEM for RC shear walls, this paper proposed a novel method to determine the MVLEM parameters using the artificial neural network (ANN). First, a comprehensive database containing 193 shear wall specimens with complete parameter information was established. And the shear walls were simulated using the classic MVLEM. The average simulation errors of the lateral force and drift of the peak and ultimate points on the skeleton curves were approximately 18%. Second, the MVLEM parameters were manually optimized to minimize the simulation error and the optimal MVLEM parameters were used as the label data of the training of the ANN. Then, the trained ANN was used to generate the MVLEM parameters of the collected shear walls. The results show that the simulation error of the predicted MVLEM was reduced to less than 13% from the original 18%. Particularly, the responses generated by the predicted MVLEM are more identical to the experimental results for the testing set, which contains both flexure-control and shear-control shear wall specimens. It indicates that establishing MVLEM for RC shear walls using ANN is feasible and promising, and that the predicted MVLEM substantially improves the simulation accuracy.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.69 no.6
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• pp.651-665
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• 2019

Past earthquakes have shown that appropriately designed and detailed buildings with shear walls have great performance such a way that a considerable portion of inelastic energy dissipation occurs in these structural elements. A plastic hinge is fundamentally an energy diminishing means which decrease seismic input energy through the inelastic deformation. Plastic hinge development in a RC shear wall in the areas which have plastic behavior depends on the ground motions characteristics as well as shear wall details. One of the most generally used forms of structural walls is flanged RC wall. Because of the flanges, these types of shear walls have large in-plane and out-of-plane stiffness and develop high shear stresses. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate the main characteristics of these structural components and provide a more comprehensive expression of plastic hinge length in the application of performance-based seismic design method and promote the development of seismic design codes for shear walls. In this regard, the effects of axial load level, wall height, wall web and flange length, as well as various features of earthquakes, are examined numerically by finite element methods and the outcomes are compared with consistent experimental data. Based on the results, a new expression is developed which can be utilized to determine the length of plastic hinge area in the flanged RC shear walls.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.7 no.5
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• pp.667-689
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• 2014

Structural walls (also known as shear walls) are one of the common lateral load resisting elements in reinforced concrete (RC) buildings in seismic regions. The performance of RC structural walls in recent earthquakes has exposed some problems with the existing design of RC structural walls. The main issues lie around the buckling of bars, out-of plane deformation of the wall (especially the zone deteriorated in compression), reinforcement getting snapped beneath a solitary thin crack etc. This study compares performance of a typical wall designed by different standards. For this purpose, a case study RC shear wall is taken from the Hotel Grand Chancellor in Christchurch which was designed according to the 1982 version of the New Zealand concrete structures standard (NZS3101:1982). The wall is redesigned in this study to comply with the detailing requirements of three standards; ACI-318-11, NZS3101:2006 and Eurocode 8 in such a way that they provide the same flexural and shear capacity. Based on section analysis and pushover analysis, nonlinear responses of the walls are compared in terms of their lateral load capacity and curvature as well as displacement ductilities, and the effect of the code limitations on nonlinear responses of the different walls are evaluated. A parametric study is also carried out to further investigate the effect of confinement length and axial load ratio on the lateral response of shear walls.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2021

Most commercial buildings among existing RC buildings in Korea have a multi-story wall-frame structure where RC shear wall is commonly used as its core at stairways or elevators. The members of the existing middle and low-rise wall-frame buildings are likely arranged in ordinary details considering building occupancy, and the importance and difficulty of member design. This is because there are few limitations, considerations, and financial burdens on the code for designing members with ordinary details. Compared with the intermediate or unique details, the ductility and overstrength are insufficient. Furthermore, the behavior of the member can be shear-dominated. Since shear failure in vertical members can cause a collapse of the entire structure, nonlinear characteristics such as shear strength and stiffness deterioration should be adequately reflected in the analysis model. With this background, an 8-story RC wall-frame building was designed as a building frame system with ordinary shear walls, and the effect of reflecting the shear failure mode of columns and walls on the collapse mechanism was investigated. As a result, the shear failure mode effect on the collapse mechanism was evident in walls, not columns. Consequently, it is recommended that the shear behavior characteristics of walls are explicitly considered in the analysis of wall-frame buildings with ordinary details.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.365-380
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• 2002

Following a series of experiments on isolated low-rise RC shear walls with openings, a theoretical study on the backbone curve of a perforated shear wall shows that there are some important observations from experimental results that make clear a semi-empirical formula of the backbone curve of a perforated wall. Critical shear zones can be depicted from the configuration of shear walls with openings. Different factors, including the size and location of shear wall openings, the wall's height/width ratio, horizontal and vertical steel bar ratios, and location and amount of diagonal steel bars are involved in the derivation of the backbone curve. Bending and shear effects are also considered in the paper. In addition, a comparison of load and displacement for solid and perforated shear walls is discussed. Generally, the comparison between experimental curves and computed backbone curves is favorable.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.61 no.3
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• pp.407-417
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• 2017

RC shear walls are considered one of the main lateral resisting members in buildings. In recent years, FRP has been widely utilized in order to strengthen and retrofit concrete structures. A number of experimental studies used CFRP sheets as an external bracing system for retrofitting of RC shear walls. It has been found that the common mode of failure is the debonding of the CFRP-concrete adhesive material. In this study, behavior of RC shear wall was investigated with three different micro models. The analysis included 2D model using plane stress element, 3D model using shell element and 3D model using solid element. To allow for the debonding mode of failure, the adhesive layer was modeled using cohesive surface-to-surface interaction model at 3D analysis model and node-to-node interaction method using Cartesian elastic-plastic connector element at 2D analysis model. The FE model results are validated comparing the experimental results in the literature. It is shown that the proposed FE model can predict the modes of failure due to debonding of CFRP and behavior of CFRP strengthened RC shear wall reasonably well. Additionally, using 2D plane stress model, many parameters on the behavior of the cohesive surfaces are investigated such as fracture energy, interfacial shear stress, partial bonding, proposed CFRP anchor location and using different bracing of CFRP strips. Using two anchors near end of each diagonal CFRP strips delay the end debonding and increase the ductility for RC shear walls.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.18 no.1E
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• pp.55-61
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• 2006

RC shear walls are frequently used as lateral force-resisting system in building construction because they have sufficient stiffness and strength against damage and collapse. If RC shear walls are properly designed and proportioned, these walls can also behave as ductile flexural members like cantilevered beams. To achieve this goal, the designer should provide adequate strength and deformation capacity of shear walls corresponding to the anticipated deformation level. In this study, the level of demands for deformation of shear walls was investigated using a displacement-based design approach. Also, deformation capacities of shear walls are evaluated through laboratory tests of shear walls with specific transverse confinement widely used in Korea. Four full-scale wall specimens with different wall boundary details and cross-sections were constructed for the experiment. The displacement-based design approach could be used to determine the deformation demands and capacities depending on the aspect ratio, ratio of wall area to floor plan area, flexural reinforcement ratio, and axial load ratio. Also, the specific boundary detailing for shear wall can be applied to enhance the deformation capacity of the shear wall.