Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Torsionally Irregular RC Shear Wall Buildings with Rutherma Breakers

A challenging prototype building having irregularly placed shear walls in plan has been designed and tested on the AZALEE shaking table at the TAMARIS laboratory in CEA/Saclay. The research project, called ENISTAT, was funded by the SERIES project via Transnational Access to the CEA/Saclay facility in France. The project has three main objectives: (1) Study the behaviour of the mock-up under increasing bi-directional horizontal synthetic earthquake records; (2) Attempt to evaluate the experimental results using modern experimental techniques for data acquisition; (3) Implement & monitor the performance of a new structural element that allows for wall-slab connection to reduce thermal energy losses. Rutherma elements were used only at the second floor level as a connection member between the shear walls and the slab. After initial low level tests, seismic tests having PGA’s of 0.1, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6 and 0.8 g were applied consecutively. During the first three tests, i.e. up to 0.4 g, no significant damage was observed in the structural members except minor hairline cracks on the spandrel beams. At the 0.6 g test, more cracks in beams were observed without any major crack in walls. During the 0.8 g test, separation of the shear wall member from the foundation was observed on the flexible side. No damage on the Rutherma breakers was observed