Seismic behaviour of lightly reinforced concrete structural walls with openings

Abstract

An experimental investigation was carried out to examine the seismic behaviour of three lightly reinforced concrete walls with openings subjected to reversed cyclic loading. The three specimens consisted of one solid wall as the control specimen while the other two walls were detailed with regular or irregular openings. The test results indicate that all three specimens eventually failed when the outermost reinforcing bars fractured while the concrete in the compression zone crushed and spalled severely near the base. The specimen with five openings had ultimate strength and stiffness degradation similar to the control specimen. The specimen with nine openings had a lower ultimate strength but exhibited higher ductility, slower stiffness degradation and a more significant shear contribution than the control specimen. Furthermore, strut-and-tie models were developed to predict the ultimate strength of walls with openings. The results obtained from the strut-and-tie models were found to be consistent with the experimentally observed results.