Deformation capacity of reinforced concrete shear walls

Reinforced concrete shear walls are commonly used to increase lateral stiffness and strength of a building against earthquake and wind loads. Shear strength and deformation capacity (or ductility) are two important components to characterize the wall behavior under lateral loading. Wall shear strength equations have been used in seismic codes (e.g. ASCE 7, ACI 318, Turkish Seismic Code, Eurocode 8, and Japanese Standard for Seismic Evaluation of Existing Reinforced Concrete Buildings), however, studies about deformation capacity/ductility are relatively limited. Previous research have shown that reinforcement detailing has a significant influence on deformation capacity of shear walls. As majority of reinforced concrete shear wall buildings constructed prior to introduction of modern seismic codes were designed with inadequate reinforcement and poor detailing, such buildings have been observed to be more vulnerable to damage. To reduce the risk of potential damage in future earthquakes, seismic rehabilitation of existing buildings has become vital. Effective rehabilitation can be achieved by understanding the behavior and response of shear walls and by modeling the structure as accurately as possible. Deformation capacity has a very important role in reliable modeling of shear walls and assessment of failure of shear wall buildings. In this study, deformation capacity of shear walls is assessed and influence of various parameters on wall deformation capacity is investigated. To achieve this goal, a wall test database consisting of hundreds of test data conducted worldwide is assembled, which is also used to assess mean deformation values for both shear walls that fail in flexural modes and walls that are expected to have brittle failure modes.