Lateral Load Behavior and Modeling of Low-Rise Reinforced Concrete Walls for Performance Based Design

The function of reinforced concrete (RC) structural walls is mainly to impede lateral forces such as seismic loads.   Due to the importance that a structural wall has in resisting earthquake loads, it is vital to be able to model and asses their behavior as well as their performance when subjected to these strenuous loads.  The purpose of this paper aims to asses coupled shear-flexure responses as well as validate the American Concrete Institute code provision on determining the shear strength of RC walls.  Furthermore, evaluation of the mechanisms leading to loss of axial load capacity when the wall has already experienced shear failure was also analyzed.  Five large-scale RC structural walls were constructed and are being tested with a reversed-cyclic loading.  Linear variable differential transformers (LVDTs) were placed on both sides of the specimen in order to measure linear displacements on various points of the wall.  Strain gauges were also installed on the reinforcing steel of the specimen.  One specimen has already been tested in which the specimen was subjected to both load controlled and displacement controlled tests.  The specimen failed under a little more than one hundred kip lateral force while being subjected to an axial load of 144k which is 10%A_gf^’_c.  It is interesting to note that the specimen could reach 4% drift ratio which was much greater than expected.