Controlling the earthquake-induced lateral displacement of RC buildings using shear walls: parametric study

Abstract

Shear walls are known for their contribution in improving the lateral stiffness and thus controlling the story drift of the Reinforced Concrete (RC) buildings against earthquake loading. Although substantial research is available on shear wall-frame buildings, a detailed parametric study which can help the designers and field engineers to obtain an optimum arrangement of shear walls is missing in the literature. In the present study, a multi-story RC building, square in plan and assumed to be located in a seismically active city of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, was laterally stiffened with the shear walls of different thickness, height, configuration, and opening location. The building was then subjected to seismic forces, and the influence of shear walls in controlling the lateral response of the building was studied by varying the above parameters. The earthquake was considered from one direction only while studying the effect of the first two parameters (i.e., thickness and height) as the building and shear wall arrangements were symmetric along the two orthogonal directions. However, in case of third and fourth parameters (i.e., shear wall configuration and opening location), earthquake was considered from the two directions separately as the shear wall configuration and opening location were not symmetric in the two orthogonal directions. The results of the present study are very useful for obtaining the optimum amount and arrangement of shear walls in a given RC frame building against a specified seismic loading.