Experimental Study on the Seismic Behavior of High- Performance Fiber-Reinforced Concrete Low-Rise Walls

Abstract

The use of tensile strain-hardening, high-performance fiber-reinforced concrete (HPFRC) in low-rise structural walls as a means to simplify reinforcement detailing was evaluated. To validate the proposed simplified reinforcement design, five HPFRC cantilever low-rise wall specimens with shear span-to-length ratios of either 1.2 or 1.5 were tested under large displacement reversals. For comparison purposes, four reinforced concrete (RC) walls detailed according to the seismic provisions of ACI 318-05 were also tested. The HPFRC walls had little or no confinement reinforcement in the boundary regions and reduced web distributed reinforcement compared with that in the RC walls. The RC walls exhibited drift capacities of up to 2.3%, whereas the HPFRC walls sustained drifts of up to 3%. As expected, an increase in shear stress demand led to a decrease in drift capacity for both RC and HPFRC walls. No indication of early concrete crushing or buckling of the longitudinal reinforcement was observed in the boundary regions of the HPFRC walls, even when no confinement reinforcement was provided.