Investigation on seismic behavior of RC shear walls with multiple post-construction openings based on experiment and simulation

Abstract

The quasi-static tests and finite element simulations of one shear wall without openings and three shear walls with the same total area but different arrangement of post-construction openings were carried out. The failure modes, ultimate loading capacities, skeleton curves, energy dissipation capacities, shear deformations and strain distribution of the shear wall specimens were obtained and analyzed. The results showed that the layout of post-openings has different effects on the failure mode of shear wall. The failure modes of shear wall without openings and the wall with two post-openings arranged vertically in the middle are flexural shear failure with damage at the wall base, while that of the shear wall with one post-openings in the middle or two post-opening arranged horizontally in the middle is shear failure which occurred on the wall limbs on both sides of the openings. The opening generates redistribution of strains in the wall, revealing that the largest strain does not occur at the bottom of the wall, but at the upper corner and bottom corner of the openings, which leads to the vertical reinforcement near the opening to bear greater stress, so it reaches the yield earlier than that in the wall without opening. Compared with the shear wall without openings, the wall with two openings in the horizontal direction has the minimum residual bearing capacity, ductility and energy dissipation capacity, while the wall with two openings in the vertical direction had the maximum residual bearing capacity, ductility and energy dissipation capacity. The energy dissipation capacity, the shear deformation as well as the contribution of shear deformation to the total deformation were all significantly reduced by post-openings.