• Computers and Concrete
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.439-447
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• 2018

One of the important factors is the infill walls in the change of the structural rigidity, ductility, dynamic and static characteristics of the structures. The infill walls are not generally included in numerical analysis of reinforced concrete (RC) structural system due to lack of suitable theory and the difficulty of calculating the recommended models. In seismic regions worldwide, the residential structures are generally RC buildings with infill wall. Therefore, understanding the contribution of the infill walls to seismic performance of buildings may have a vital importance. This paper investigates the effects of infill walls on seismic performance of the existing RC residential buildings by considering requirements of the Turkish Earthquake Code (TEC). Seismic performance levels of residential RC buildings with and without walls in high-hazard zones were determined according to the nonlinear procedure given in the code. Pushover curves were obtained by considering the effect of masonry infill walls on seismic performance of RC buildings. The analysis results showed that the infill walls beneficially effected to the rigidity, roof displacements and seismic performance of the building.

• 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.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.735-752
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• 2015

The effectiveness of seismic retrofitting of RC-frame buildings by converting selected bays into new walls through infilling with RC walls was studied experimentally using a full-scale four-storey model tested with the pseudo-dynamic (PsD) method. The frames were designed and detailed for gravity loads only using different connection details between the walls and the bounding frame. In order to simulate the experimental response, two numerical models were formulated differing at the level of modelling. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the capabilities of these models to simulate the experimental nonlinear behaviour of the tested RC building strengthened with RC infill walls and comment on their effectiveness. The comparison between the capacity, in terms of peak ground acceleration, of the strengthened frame and the one of the bare frame, which was obtained numerically, has shown a five-fold increase.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.327-341
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• 2020

Advanced forms of structural design (e.g., displacement-based methods) require knowledge of the non-linear force-displacement behavior of both the overall building and individual lateral load resisting elements, i.e., walls or building cores. Similarly, understanding the non-linear behaviour of the elements in a structure can also allow for a less conservative structural response to be calculated by better understanding the cracked (i.e., effective) properties of the various RC elements. Calculating the non-linear response of an RC section typically involves using 'black box' analysis packages, wherein the user may not be in complete control nor be aware of all the intricate settings and/or decisions behind the scenes. This paper introduces a user-friendly and transparent analysis program for predicting the back-bone force displacement behavior of slender (i.e., flexure controlled) RC walls, building cores or columns. The program has been validated and benchmarked theoretically against both commonly available and widely used analysis packages and experimentally against a database of 16 large-scale RC wall test specimens. The program, which is called WHAM, is written using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to promote transparency and allow users to further develop or modify to suit individual requirements. The program is available free-of-charge and is intended to be used as an educational tool for structural designers, researchers or students.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.745-758
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• 2010

12 typical laminated composite reinforced concrete (RC) walls with different concrete ages and 3 cast-in-place RC walls subjected to low frequency cyclic load were carried out in this study. The failure mode, force-deformation response and energy dissipation capacity of these specimens were investigated. Differences of structural behaviours between composite RC walls and common cast-in-place RC walls were emphasized in the analysis. The compatibility of the composite specimens with different concrete ages was discussed based on the experiment. Test results indicated that the differences between the lateral bearing capacity and the displacement ductility of the composite walls and the common walls were not so obvious. Some of the composite specimen even has higher bearing capacity under the experiment loading situation. Besides, the two parts of the laminated composite specimens demonstrates incompatibility at the later loading sequence on failure mode and strain response when it is in tension. Finally, this laminated composite shear walls are suggested to be applied in rapid reconstruction structures which is not very high.

• 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.9 no.4
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• pp.789-830
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• 2015

The recent re-assessment of the seismic hazard in Europe led for many regions of low to moderate seismicity to an increase in the seismic demand. As a consequence, several modern unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings, constructed with reinforced concrete (RC) slabs that provide an efficient rigid diaphragm action, no longer satisfy the seismic design check and have been retrofitted by adding or replacing URM walls with RC walls. Of late, also several new construction projects have been conceived directly as buildings with both RC and URM walls. Despite the widespread use of such construction technique, very little is known about the seismic behaviour of mixed RC-URM wall structures and codes do not provide adequate support to designers. The aim of the paper is therefore to propose a displacement-based design methodology for the design of mixed RC-URM edifices and the retrofit of URM buildings by replacing or adding selected URM walls with RC ones. The article describes also two tools developed for estimating important quantities relevant for the displacement-based design of structures with both RC and URM walls. The tools are (i) a mechanical model based on the shear-flexure interaction between URM and RC walls and (ii) an elastic model for estimating the contribution of the RC slabs to the overturning moment capacity of the system. In the last part of the article the proposed design method is verified through nonlinear dynamic analyses of several case studies. These results show that the proposed design approach has the ability of controlling the displacement profile of the designed structures, avoiding concentration of deformations in one single storey, a typical feature of URM wall structures.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.74 no.1
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• pp.121-128
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• 2020

This paper presents an experimental study on the dynamic characteristics of infilled reinforced concrete (RC) frames. A 1/3-scaled, one-bay, three-storey RC frame was produced and tested by using operational modal analysis (OMA). The experiments were performed on five specimens: one reference frame with no infill walls and four frames with infill walls. The RC frame systems included infill walls made of hollow clay brick, which were constructed in four different patterns. The dynamic characteristics of the patterns, including the frequency, mode shapes and damping ratios in the in-plane direction, were obtained by 6 accelerometers. Twenty-minute records under ambient vibration were collected for each model, and the dynamic characteristics were determined using the ambient vibration testing and modal identification software (ARTeMIS). The experimental studies showed that the infill walls significantly affected the frequency value, rigidity and damping ratio of the RC frame system.

• 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.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2008.04a
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• pp.483-489
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• 2008

Masonry infill walls are frequently used as interior partitions and exterior walls in low- or middlerise RC buildings In the structural design and assessment of structural behaviors of buildings, the infill walls are usually treated as non-structural elements and they are ignored in analytical models. In this study, seismic behaviors of RC frame with/without masonry infill walls were investigated. To this end, the infill walls were modeled as equivalent diagonal struts. Based on analytical results, it has been shown that masonry infill walls can increase the global strength and stiffness of a structure. Accordingly, inter-story drift ratio will be decreased but seismic forces applied to the structure were increased than design seismic load because natural period of the structure was decreased. It is also seen from the analytical results that the inelastic deformation of RC frame with soft story is concentrated on the first story columns and thus, partial damage may have possibility of collapse of system.