A Detailed Inventory of Non-Ductile Concrete Shear Wall Buildings

Abstract

A detailed inventory of about 350 concrete shear wall buildings in western Canada with 7 or more stories and built prior to 1980 was created. About one hour was spent collecting information from drawings for each building so wall capacities could be estimated and simplified linear dynamic analysis could be used to estimate seismic demands on the building. Non-ductile behavior is expected in many of the buildings because of insufficient and/or poor arrangement of shear walls to adequately control building drifts, thin walls that are poorly detailed, and discontinuities in the shear walls. The analysis indicated that the drift demands on the buildings for the 2% in 50-year hazard level were not particularly large, however the flexural capacities of the walls are low considering their limited ductility. The shear capacities of the walls were typically less critical. The current study demonstrates that a detailed inventory can be used to distinguish between the performance of similar buildings, which can be used to refine a regional risk assessment or inform policy decisions for the group of buildings.