Crack Kinematics During the Transition from Shear to Sliding or Crushing Failure in Seismically Loaded Squat Reinforced Concrete Shear Walls

Squat reinforced concrete shear walls are used as gravity and lateral-load-resisting systems in structures such as residential buildings or nuclear power plants. Due to their low aspect ratio, they are prone to failing in shear or sliding. There is uncertainty on which parameters define this failure mode transition, and how to account for this in the design of new buildings or assessment of existing structures. A series of real-scale shear wall tests are being conducted at the multi-axis subassemblage testing (MAST) facility at ETH Zürich to identify the transition between shear and sliding failures. Response analysis of two specimens with the same geometry and reinforcement ratio, but different levels of axial load is presented. Specimen SW01 failed in sliding, whereas Specimen SW02 failed in shear (diagonal compression). Their peak horizontal shear strengths were 2460 kN and 2980 kN, respectively. The evolving kinematics of the cracks developed in both specimens is analyzed using the deformation fields obtained with digital image correlation (DIC) measurements and compared to identify the point of shear-to-sliding and shear-to-compression transitions.ISSN:2366-2557ISSN:2366-256