Abstract
Abstract Architectural configurations of reinforced concrete (RC) wall buildings force the connection of structural walls with beams, slabs and adjacent walls to distribute habitational spaces, generating interaction between those structural elements that results in a coupled structural system. Studies on resisting planes of RC buildings damaged during 2010 Chile earthquake suggest that the behavior of structural walls was highly influenced by the interaction of the resisting plane with the rest of the structure. Furthermore, researchers have identified 7the high levels of axial load as one of the principal causes of the observed wall damage on these buildings, and that a significant amount of this load comes from the seismic demands. However, there is uncertainty about how different coupling elements contribute to the seismic demands in RC walls. In this work, the seismic demands of axial load, shear and moment of RC walls are estimated from three buildings damaged during the 2010 earthquake using detailed finite element models that consider their three-dimensional layout. the contribution of coupling elements to the seismic demands of the studied RC walls is determined. Additionally, the effects of the assumed stiffness of structural elements over the seismic demands is evaluated. The results show that slabs have the largest contribution to the seismic axial load in walls, contributing with more that 90%, followed by adjacent walls and connecting beams. Furthermore, the obtained moment and shear diagrams of the studied walls are significantly different than those of cantilever walls, and it was found that the assumed stiffness of structural elements exerts an important effect on the prediction of the seismic demands in RC walls.
Highlights
Reinforced concrete (RC) structural wall buildings are widely used in the world due to their capacity to withstand seismic loads, to control lateral displacements and limit damage on nonstructural components
A recent study by Alarcón et al (2015) on resisting planes of RC buildings damaged during 2010 in Chile suggests that the behavior of structural walls was highly influenced by the interaction of the resisting plane with the rest of the structure
The spectral displacement at the fundamental period of each building, and the scaling factors used for each horizontal component of the ground motions are summarized in Table 2 for buildings located in Concepción and in Table 3 for the located in Santiago
Summary
Reinforced concrete (RC) structural wall buildings are widely used in the world due to their capacity to withstand seismic loads, to control lateral displacements and limit damage on nonstructural components. Since yielding of elements is expected before the buildings reach their strength in Englekirk (2003), the reduction factors for the moments of inertia proposed by the ACI 318-14 (ACI, 2014) are used for columns, beams, walls, and slabs These factors account for the cracking and inelastic action near or beyond the yield level and have shown to produce reasonable correlation with both experimental and analytical results (Moehle, 1992; Lepage, 1998). The seismic demands are estimated through response history analyses using a set of six Chilean seismic records from the 2010 earthquake, applying the ground motions in both horizontal directions simultaneously From these analyses, an estimation of the height-wise contributions of coupling elements to the seismic axial load, shear and moment in eight damaged walls is obtained, identifying the participation of slabs, beams, and adjacent walls. The third additional model is identical to the second one, but it considers a diaphragm with infinite in-plane stiffness, as commonly assumed in engineering practice
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