Experimental and numerical investigations on concentrated-hollow RC shear walls

Abstract

To study the seismic performance of concentrated-hollow RC shear walls (hollow RC wall), cyclic loading tests were conducted on two hollow RC wall specimens and a conventional RC shear wall (solid RC shear wall) specimen. The influences of the hollow middle on the bearing capacity, deformation capacity, energy dissipation capacity and failure mode of the RC shear wall structure were investigated, and the influence of hollow ratios on the seismic performance of the hollow RC wall was explored. In addition, the nonlinear multilayer shell element in OpenSees software was used to establish the finite element model of the hollow RC shear wall, and the mechanical properties of the hollow RC shear wall were numerically simulated. The results show that under reversed loading, the failure sequence of a hollow RC shear wall was as follows: i) Horizontal cracks appeared at the side columns, and then the reinforcement in the side columns yielded. ii) The edge wall was covered with oblique cracks, and the compression peeling of the concrete appeared at the lower part of the edge wall. iii) Compression failure occurred in the side columns. The failure mode of the hollow RC shear wall behaved as a flexural-shear mode, and the ductility, stiffness, and bearing capacity of the hollow RC wall specimen decreased with increasing hollow ratio. The nonlinear multilayer shell element can effectively simulate the mechanical properties of the hollow RC wall.