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Effect of Axial
Effect of Axial
Effect of Axial
Engineering Structures
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a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: About 2% of Reinforced Concrete (RC) buildings taller than nine stories suffered serious damage in
Received 21 August 2013 structural walls during the 2010 Chile earthquake. The observed damage involved mostly crushing of
Revised 18 February 2014 concrete, buckling of vertical reinforcement, and opening of the horizontal reinforcement. This damage
Accepted 22 April 2014
is attributed to poor concrete confinement in the web and boundaries, inadequate horizontal reinforce-
Available online 22 May 2014
ment detailing, and high axial loads. This research aims to reproduce the observed damage and evaluate
the influence of axial loads in the seismic behavior of RC walls with unconfined boundaries. To achieve
Keywords:
these objectives, three identical wall specimens were tested. The wall specimens were designed with
Reinforced concrete
Axial load
characteristic wall detailing obtained from data of five damaged buildings. These wall specimens were
Wall tested under equal lateral displacement cycles and subjected to different axial load ratios. The
Experiment flexural-compressive failure mode exhibited by damaged walls during the earthquake was reproduced
Reinforcement buckling in these tests. Experimental results indicate that high axial load has a significant effect on the seismic
Seismic behavior performance and failure mode of RC walls. Indeed, it triggers a dangerous brittle concrete crushing failure
Chile which occurs immediately after spalling of the concrete cover.
Failure Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2014.04.047
0141-0296/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
14 C. Alarcon et al. / Engineering Structures 73 (2014) 13–23
effect. The effect of high axial loads in the flexural behavior of RC prototype wall for conducting the experimental campaign pre-
walls was studied experimentally by Zhang and Wang [9] and Su sented herein. General characteristics of five seriously damaged
and Wong [10]. They concluded that the axial load affects the RC buildings and relevant properties of their walls were consid-
cracking pattern, failure mode, and ductility of the walls. These ered. Mostly, rectangular walls were included in this survey
conclusions were obtained by testing RC walls with transverse because their behavior is much simpler to interpret and hence
boundary reinforcement, which increases ductility by providing experiments were limited to such sections as a first approximation
concrete confinement, which is not the case of Chilean walls. Dur- to this complex problem; rectangular walls represent 32% of the
ing a compressive failure of a well confined RC wall, the axial total walls of the selected buildings.
strength is not reduced after spalling of the cover concrete; the Five damaged buildings, whose number of stories ranged from
deformation capacity and strength of the concrete core increases 13 to 20, were considered in this survey. Four of them were located
due to confinement, and the inelasticity may be distributed along in the city of Concepción (CM, AH, PR and AA); whose characteris-
the wall height. However, if confinement is poor, damage in gen- tics were obtained from the survey performed by Westenenk et al.
eral will not be redistributed along the boundary element and [12], and one in Santiago (EM). The specified concrete strength is
may localize in a reduced region of the wall characterized by a brit- fc0 = 20 MPa for PR and EM buildings, and fc0 = 25 MPa for CM, AH,
tle flexural-compressive failure, induced by crushing of concrete and AA buildings. The wall characteristics considered in the survey
and buckling of vertical reinforcement bars as it was observed in were: wall thickness, M/Vlw ratio (where M is the moment at the
some walls of damaged Chilean buildings (Fig. 1). This research base of the wall, V the shear load and lw the wall length), ALR,
aims to reproduce the damage observed in walls during the 2010 and reinforcement ratios. For this purpose, 27, 20, 14, 22 and 4 crit-
Earthquake and to experimentally evaluate the cyclic behavior of ical walls of the first two stories and basement–where damage was
RC walls subjected to high ALRs. Findings from this project are usually concentrated–were considered for CM, AH, PR, AA and EM
intended to be considered in future RC walls design provisions in buildings, respectively.
Chile in order to avoid the brittle failure mode observed in 2010. The wall thicknesses of the four buildings located in Concepción
More details of this research project are available elsewhere [11]; range between 150 and 200 mm, and between 170 and 250 mm for
experimental data is open to the community and will be available the EM building. The vertical loads and the M/Vlw ratios were
in the NEES Project Warehouse. obtained from finite element models of the buildings using ETABS
[13]. The moment (M) and the shear (V) of walls corresponds to the
seismic demand obtained from a modal response spectrum analy-
2. Survey of damaged buildings sis according to the Chilean Code [14]. The M/Vlw ratio is an impor-
tant property for the wall behavior, and if this ratio is small, the
A survey of critical walls of damaged RC buildings was wall is considered squat and probably will exhibit a shear mode
conducted in this study to obtain representative characteristics of failure [7]. The average of the mean M/Vlw ratios of the critical
of damaged walls. These characteristics were used to define a walls in the damaged buildings is 2.02, which means that these
walls cannot be considered squat, and hence flexural behavior is
relevant. However, some of the selected walls in the buildings con-
sidered were squat with M/Vlw ratios less than 0.5.
The ALRs of the surveyed walls of the five damaged buildings
for gravitational load, including dead load and 25% of live load
(D + 0.25L) are shown in Fig. 2(a) where the mean and standard
deviation of the average ALRs for the five buildings is 0.18, and
0.10, respectively. The axial load in walls induced by an earthquake
is estimated using modal response spectrum analysis according to
NCh433 [14]. Fig. 2(b) shows the ALRs of walls of damaged build-
ings under gravitational plus earthquake loads (D + 0.25L + E),
where the earthquake loads have been divided by the strength
reduction factor. The mean and standard deviation of the average
ALRs for the five buildings is 0.27 and 0.09, respectively. The mean
average ALR for these loads is 50% larger than the value for gravi-
tational loads. Also shown in Fig. 2(b) is the fact that about 10% of
the walls are subjected to ALRs higher than 0.35, which is the limit
imposed after the 2010 Chile Earthquake [15] for ultimate axial
loads. Also, only 20% of the walls exhibit ALRs lower than 0.15
and the rest 70% of the walls exhibit ALRs between 0.15 and
0.35. This latter range of ALRs is considered for the experimental
program of this research. However, if the load combination
1.2D + 1.0L + 1.4E is considered in this analysis according to
NCh3171 [16], the mean of the average ALR of the five buildings
increases to 0.38 and the percentage of walls with ALR higher than
0.35 increases to 37%.
The actual axial load demand in RC walls during the 2010 earth-
quake may have exceeded the one estimated from the design code.
A comparison between the elastic response spectra, from the two
ground motions recorded closest to the four buildings located in
Concepción, and the elastic design spectra is shown in Fig. 3. The
Fig. 1. Typical flexural-compressive failure of RC walls during 2010 Chile
ordinates of elastic design spectra (Sae) and response spectra at
Earthquake involving crushing of concrete, vertical reinforcement buckling, and the fundamental period of the buildings are summarized in Table 1.
horizontal reinforcement opening. The fundamental period of the buildings and the soil type, were
C. Alarcon et al. / Engineering Structures 73 (2014) 13–23 15
0.6 0.6
0.5 0.5
ALR (D+0.25L+E)
ALR (D+0.25L)
0.4 0.4
0.3 0.3
0.2 0.2
0.1 0.1
0 0
CM AH PR AA EM CM AH PR AA EM
(a) (b)
Fig. 2. ALR in RC walls for (a) D + 0.25L and (b) D + 0.25L + E . ALR increase in average 50% when earthquake loads are added to the gravity loads.
20
San Pedro EW a single wall with a maximum ratio of 3.27%, which is about 13
San Pedro NS
Sae soil type II
times the minimum ratio of 0.25% required by ACI 318 [8]. The
Sae soil type III cross section detailing of this wall is shown in Fig. 4. The high
15
average ql ratio in building AH seems to compensate for the low
average q of 0.22%. EM building also has a high ql ratio of 1.34%
10 compared to the other three buildings (CM, PR and AA), whose
average ratio is only 0.53%. The average qt ratio of the five build-
5 ings is 0.45%, which is about 1.8 times the minimum ratio of
0.25% required by the ACI 318 code [8].
0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
Period (s) 3. Experimental program
Fig. 3. Comparison between elastic design spectra and response spectra of two
stations recorded near Concepcion. Three identical RC wall specimens identified as W1, W2 and W3
were designed with representative characteristics obtained from
the survey described in section 2. The design of the wall specimens
obtained from Westenenek et al. [12]. Table 1 also summarizes the and the test setup including instrumentation and load application
strength reduction factor (R⁄) according to the design code [14] and protocol are described in this section. The tests were aimed to
the factored inelastic design spectrum (1.4Sae/R⁄). If an elastic reproduce the observed failure in walls during the 2010 Chile
behavior of the buildings is assumed, which is a reasonable Earthquake and to evaluate the influence of axial load in the
assumption before the brittle damage occurred in RC walls, the seismic behavior of the walls.
response spectrum ordinates are 11.9, 5.4, 2.1, and 12.1 times
the factored inelastic design spectrum values for buildings CM, 3.1. Wall geometry and reinforcement
AH, PR and AA, respectively.
The mean vertical boundary reinforcement (q), vertical distrib- For the wall specimen design, a 1/2 scale was selected for the
uted reinforcement (ql) and horizontal reinforcement (qt) ratios of wall prototype due to laboratory limitations. The wall cross section
Table 1
Comparison between inelastic design spectrum and response spectrum for buildings located in Concepción.
Building Building period (s) Soil type Sae (m/s2) Response spectrum (m/s2) R⁄ Inelastic design spectrum (m/s2)
CM 0.80 II 4.05 7.74 8.8 0.65
AH 0.78 III 10.49 12.56 6.3 2.31
PR 0.50 III 12.11 7.06 5.2 3.29
AA 0.71 II 4.79 9.51 8.5 0.79
Table 2
Average reinforcement ratios of walls of damaged buildings considered for the wall
specimen design.
3.2. Materials
2 40
is obtained from Dy ¼ hw /y =3, where hw = 1750 mm is the height
30
of the free cantilever wall, and /y is the estimated yield curvature
20
[11]. The ductility factors D/Dy that where intended to be applied
10
at peak displacements of the three walls were 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 3, 4,
0
5, 6, and 8. The actuator command displacement loading protocol
− 10
is shown in Fig. 8, where the actuator displacement was
− 20
increased by 20% to account for the flexibility of the loading
− 30
frame measured in a previous calibration test with a wall of
− 40
the same characteristics.
− 50
This section describes the observed damage and failure patterns Fig. 8. Horizontal actuator command displacement with two cycles at each peak
amplitude of 3.3, 6.6, 9.9, 13.2, 19.8, 26.4, 33, 39.6 and 52.8 mm.
of the three tested walls. Load–displacement relationships are
EAST WEST
Steel I beam
700 kN
Actuator Load cell Rolling Support
IN Beam 500 kN Actuator Steel plate
with rollers
Plate Plate
Steel bar
1750
mm Wall
specimen
LATERAL VIEW
initiation of cover
concrete spalling
horizontal and
diagonal cracks
(b) W3
vertical crack
(a) W3 (c) W3
(d) W1 (e) W2
Fig. 9. Observed behavior of wall specimens: cracking process and failure. Horizontal and diagonal cracks were followed by vertical cracks at the initiation of cover concrete
spalling. The walls experimented a flexural-compressive concrete crushing failure with vertical reinforcement buckling, horizontal reinforcement opening, and out-of-plane
wall buckling.
compared among walls and the plastic hinge approach is used to followed by horizontal flexural cracks near the base of the walls
estimate ultimate wall displacements and rotations. In the follow- on the tensile zone (Fig. 9(a)). The initiation of yielding occurred
ing discussion, the lateral wall displacement (D) and drift (D/hw) in the vertical bars at the boundary. Fig. 11 shows the strain his-
are obtained from the displacement transducer located in the wall tory of strain gauges V1M (left toe) and V7M (right toe) which
specimens at the level of the horizontal actuator (transducer 3 in were located 200 mm above the concrete base in the vertical bars
Fig. 7(a)) and not from the actuator displacement. at the boundary, V1 and V7, respectively (Fig. 7(b)). For wall W1,
first yielding was measured in compression in bars V1 at a wall
4.1. Cracking process and failure mode displacement of 9.7 mm (0.6% drift) and V7 bars also yielded in
compression in the following loading reversal. For walls W2
The behavior and failure mode of the three wall specimens with and W3 first yielding also occurred in compression in bars V1
ALR of 0.15, 0.25 and 0.35 was controlled by flexural-compressive at a wall displacement of 4.9 mm (0.3% drift) and 4.6 mm (0.3%
interaction due to the relatively high M/Vlw ratio of 2.5. The crack drift), respectively. Bars V7 also yielded in compression in the
initiation and propagation was similar for the three walls at the following cycle. In walls W2 and W3 yielding occurred before
first cycles of the tests (Fig. 9) but the ultimate stage was affected the first observed crack. This early yielding in compression seems
by ALR (Fig. 10). to be attributed to the high compressive strain of about 0.1% (i.e.
The first cracks were observed at 8.1 mm (0.5% drift) lateral half of the yield strain of the steel bars) which was recorded after
wall displacement for the three walls. These first cracks were the application of the axial load. Fig. 11 also shows that bars V1
diagonal cracks along the height of the walls which were and V7 in walls W2 and W3 showed larger compressive strains
C. Alarcon et al. / Engineering Structures 73 (2014) 13–23 19
52.5
failure
3 complete spalling of concrete cover that exposed the reinforce-
displacement (mm)
vertical
(a) W1 horizontal
first crack
spalling ment occurred at the wall boundaries generally at about
26.3 1.5
crack 26 mm wall displacement (1.5% drift) for the three walls. After
Drift (%)
0 0
reaching this drift level, wall W3 with ALR of 0.35 failed imme-
diately after spalling of the cover concrete at 26.5 mm of wall lat-
yielding
− 26.3 −1.5 eral displacement (1.5% drift). Wall W2 with ALR of 0.25 survived
longer and failed at the last reversal cycle of that same amplitude
− 52.5 −3
0 2000 4000 6000 8000
at 31.3 mm peak lateral wall displacement (1.8% drift). On the
other hand, wall W1 with ALR of 0.15 could attain much more
Time (sec)
deformation after concrete spalling as its failure occurred at
52.5 3 48 mm displacement (2.8% drift). For the three wall specimens,
displacement (mm)
vertical the test ended when the walls were not able to carry the applied
(b) W2 horizontal
spalling
crack
26.3 first 1.5 axial load. A brittle compressive failure along the entire length of
crack
Drift (%)
the walls together with a sideway out-of-plane buckling was
0 0
observed in the three walls (Fig. 9(c) and (d)). Not only the bars
yielding
− 26.3 −1.5
closest to the wall edges exhibited buckling; but also the second
failure bars (Fig. 9(e)). Additionally, the horizontal reinforcement opened
− 52.5 −3 due to the poor detailing with the 90° hooks. Therefore, the low
0 2000 4000 6000 8000
concrete confinement provided by the horizontal reinforcement
Time (sec) became completely ineffective.
The observed failure mode of the three wall specimens
52.5 3
(Fig. 12) was similar to that observed in some walls damaged
displacement (mm)
(b) W3 horizontal
vertical spalling
26.3 first crack 1.5 during the 2010 Chile earthquake (Fig. 1). The horizontal and
failure
crack vertical reinforcement bars in the three wall specimens did not
Drift (%)
−3 −3
x 10 x 10
4 4
2 2
V1M Steel strain
0 0
−2 −2
−4 −4
−6 −6 W1
−8 −8 W2
W3
−10 −10
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400
Time (sec) Time (sec)
Fig. 11. Strain versus time for strain gauges V1M and V7M for specimens W1, W2 and W3 (first four displacement amplitudes) show that yielding occurred first in
compression.
20 C. Alarcon et al. / Engineering Structures 73 (2014) 13–23
summarized in Table 5. Wall W1 failed under concrete crushing at 4.3. Analytical estimations and plastic hinge length
48 mm (2.7% drift) wall displacement, seven cycles after reaching
the peak strength. A strength reduction of 5.9% occurred in the pre- A fiber model for RC sections was developed using MATLAB
vious completed cycle of 39.3 mm (2.2% drift) wall displacement [17] in order to perform a flexural analysis of the wall speci-
amplitude. The strength reduction measured in subsequent cycles mens. Fig. 14 shows the discretization of the cross-section of
of equal amplitude is attributed to buckling of vertical reinforce- the wall and the strain profile, where plane sections remain
ment. Wall W2 experienced a concrete crushing failure at plane. The stress–strain constitutive models proposed by Karthik
31.3 mm (1.8% drift) wall displacement. The failure occurred at and Mander [18] were adopted for concrete and steel consider-
the second cycle at this amplitude and it was triggered by a ing the material properties described in Section 3.2. At midway
strength reduction of 6.6% relative to the strength of the preceding between stirrups, the effective confined concrete area is only
cycle. When vertical and horizontal cracks at the base of wall W3 3.3% of the concrete core which results in a low confinement
were still developing, suddenly the concrete reached high com- ratio of K ¼ fcc0 =fc0 ¼ 1:01, where fcc0 is the compressive concrete
pressive stresses that exceeded concrete capacity and triggered a strength of the confined core [19]. For a given curvature, the
concrete crushing failure at 26.5 mm (1.5% drift) wall displace- bending moment of the fiber section is obtained by finding the
ment. Prior to failure, at 24.4 mm (1.39% drift) wall displacement neutral axis depth such that the applied axial load (Table 4) is
cycles (1.39% drift), a 6.7% strength reduction was measured in achieved.
the second cycle of that amplitude. The ultimate displacement and rotation of the wall specimens
The dissipated work, estimated as the enclosed areas of the are estimated using the simplified plastic hinge approach
load–displacement relationships for the last completed cycles are (Fig. 15) where a plastic hinge length of lp = 2.5tw = 250 mm is
5.66 kN m for wall W1, 4.87 kN m (14% reduction) for wall W2, considered [20], and the ultimate and yield curvatures are
and 3.67 kN m (35% reduction) for wall W3. The equivalent viscous obtained from the fiber model. This plastic hinge length agrees
damping ratios for these cycles, computed as the ratio of dissipated well with the average experimental plastic hinge length of
work over 4p times the elastic work of the wall, are 17%, 15%, and 243 mm. The experimental plastic hinge length is simply defined
14% for walls W1, W2 and W3, respectively. Please note that true as the distance between the bottom and top edges of the spalled
equivalent viscous damping ratios for the building are much smal- region of the walls at failure (Fig. 16). The resulting displace-
ler than these values because the elastic energy of the structure is ments and rotations are summarized in Tables 7 (Dflex) and 8
much larger than the sum of the elastic energies of the walls. In any (hflex), respectively. The estimated ultimate displacements for
case, the relevant trend is that the equivalent viscous damping the three walls are on average 61% of the experimental displace-
ratios decrease as ALR increases. ments (Dexpu ), and the ultimate rotations are on average 72% of the
The comparison between the analytical and experimental experimental rotations (hexp u ), where the ultimate rotations at the
strength is summarized in Table 6. In this table, Vn is the shear edge of the walls were obtained from the displacement transduc-
strength and Vi is the interaction strength computed using ers 7 and 8 in Fig 7. These large differences are attributed mostly
ACI318 [8] with the material properties of Section 3.2. For the to shear deformation and rigid body rotation of the wall speci-
interaction strength, a lever arm of hw = 1750 mm is considered. mens induced by reinforcement slip of the vertical bars. To pre-
It is important to note that the axial load of wall W3 (Table 4) dict the displacement correctly, a plastic hinge length of
is 97% of the axial load corresponding to the balance point. The Lp = 5.9, 4.9, and 5.2tw has to be used for walls W1, W2, and
ACI shear strength overestimates the experimental strength 52% W3, respectively.
on average because the walls are slender and their strength is The ultimate displacements and rotations are also estimated
controlled by flexure. On the other hand, the ACI flexural using a four-component model (Dfc, hfc) that was developed for this
strength is on average 75% of the experimental strength. This comparison an includes flexure, shear, slip, and the base rotations
low estimation is attributed to the location of the critical region, of the wall specimens (Table 7 and 8). The flexure component
which was located above the base and thus the lever arm is less (Dflex, hflex) is estimated from the plastic hinge model described pre-
than hw. viously using lp = 2.5tw. The shear component, which contributes
C. Alarcon et al. / Engineering Structures 73 (2014) 13–23 21
−100 (a) W1
Strain profile
−200
−52.5 −35 −17.5 0 17.5 35 52.5
Displacement (mm)
100
700 mm
0
−200
−52.5 −35 −17.5 0 17.5 35 52.5
Displacement (mm)
Drift (%)
−3 −2 −1 0 1 2 3
200
Confined concrete block
Horizontal load (kN)
−100 (c) W3 Fig. 14. Fiber model. The height of the fibers shown in this diagram is larger than
the 1 mm fiber height used in the analysis.
−200
−52.5 −35 −17.5 0 17.5 35 52.5
Displacement (mm)
slip component (Dslip, hslip) is estimated using the equation pro-
posed by Sezen and Setzler [21]. The slip of the bars in the tensile
Reinforcement yielding
Cover concrete spalling side generates a rigid body rotation of the walls that induces lateral
Concrete crushing failure displacement. Finally, the contribution due to rigid body rotation
of the concrete base was measured in the test (Drot, hrot). The result-
Fig. 13. Load–displacement relationships show that the lateral strength of the walls ing displacements and rotations are on average, 73% and 84% of the
(peak loads from the tests) is strongly influenced by the ALR. The 144.3 kN strength
experimental displacements and rotations, respectively. It is con-
from wall W1 increases to 166 kN (15% increase) and 185.6 kN (28.6% increase) in
walls W2 and W3, respectively. cluded that a nonlinear shear deformation needs to be considered
in the four component model to provide a better estimation of the
ultimate displacement.
Table 5
Summary of test results.
Result W1 W2 W3
Yield load (kN) 96.6 73.4 83.6
Peak load (kN) 144.3 166.0 185.6
Failure load (kN) 81.3 153.5 146.5
Drift at yielding (%) 0.6 0.3 0.3
Drift at peak load (%) 1.8 1.8 1.2
Drift at failure (%) 2.7 1.8 1.5
Table 7
Comparison between the analytical estimation and experimental values of the ultimate lateral displacement.
Wall Dflex (mm) Dshear (mm) Dslip (mm) Drot (mm) Dfc (mm) Dexp
u (mm) Dflex =Dexp
u Dfc =Dexp
u
Table 8
Comparison between the analytical estimation and experimental values of the ultimate rotation.
Wall hflex (rad) hslip (rad) hrot (rad) hfc (rad) hexp
u (rad) hflex =hexp
u hfc =hexp
u
5. Conclusions W2, with ALR of 0.25, showed the same type of failure mode but
less brittle; failure occurred at 1.8% drift, three cycles after concrete
The earthquake that struck southern and central Chile in 2010 spalling. For wall W1, with ALR of 0.15, the behavior was more
provides valuable information about building performance. ductile than that for the other two walls and failure occurred at
Despite of the global assessment of acceptable performance of RC 2.7% drift. It is concluded that the displacement capacity of the wall
buildings, the observed brittle damage induced by the earthquake was reduced almost by half when the ALR was increased from 0.15
motivates conducting research with the purpose of improving the to 0.35. It is concluded that the ALR limit of 0.35 adopted in current
seismic design provisions of RC buildings. Wall characteristics Chilean code is not adequate for slender walls with non-seismic
obtained from a survey performed on real buildings led us to boundary detailing.
observe an average M/Vlw ratio of 2.02, low wall thicknesses, and The average measured plastic hinge length for the three walls
lack of boundary confinement. These factors suggest that RC walls was 243 mm which agrees well with the result obtained by Takah-
experienced brittle damage controlled by flexural-compressive ashi et al. [20]. The plastic hinge approach with a plastic hinge
interaction. The mean ALR of critical walls in five damaged build- length of Lp = 2.5tw estimates on average only 61% of the lateral dis-
ings was 0.18 for service gravity forces. This ALR increases signifi- placement. A plastic hinge length of Lp = 5.9, 4.9, and 5.2tw has to
cantly if seismic forces are included. be considered to estimate the ultimate displacement adequately
The flexural-compressive failure mode observed in RC walls for walls W1, W2, and W3, respectively.
during 2010 Chile earthquake was reproduced experimentally in Some of the buildings which did not exhibit damage in 2010
the performed tests. Concrete crushing, vertical reinforcement may be susceptible to brittle behavior in a future earthquake.
buckling, horizontal reinforcement opening at wall boundaries, These structures should be analyzed to determine if retrofit is
and out-of-plane wall buckling observed in the tests was similar required to sustain several inelastic deformation cycles in future
to the damage observed in walls after the earthquake. The failure events. The use of energy dissipation devices in such buildings
mode of wall W3, with ALR of 0.35, was brittle and extremely sud- may be a good alternative for retrofitting since they could control
den; experimental concrete crushing in compression occurred at the seismic axial loads of walls and could limit the flexural-com-
1.5% drift, immediately after spalling of the concrete cover. Wall pressive failure modes exhibited by the tested walls and the walls
C. Alarcon et al. / Engineering Structures 73 (2014) 13–23 23
in actual buildings. Additionally, for future research it is recom- [5] Westenenk B, de la Llera JC, Jünemann R, Hube M, Besa JJ, Lüders C, et al.
Analysis and interpretation of the seismic response of RC buildings in
mended to test thicker RC walls to validate the minimum thickness
Concepción during the February 27, 2010, Chile Earthquake. Bull Earthquake
of 300 mm required for walls with boundary confinement in the Eng 2012;11(1):69–91.
current Chilean Code. [6] Wood SL. Performance of reinforced concrete buildings during the 1985 Chile
Earthquake: implications for the design of structural walls. Earthquake Spectra
1991;7(4):607–38.
Acknowledgments [7] Hidalgo PA, Ledezma CA, Jordán RM. Seismic behavior of squat reinforced
concrete shear walls. Earthquake Spectra 2002;18(2):187–208.
The authors are grateful to many people and institutions which [8] American Concrete Institute (ACI). Building Code Requirements for Structural
Concrete and Commentary (ACI 318–11); 2011.
made this work possible. This research has been funded by the [9] Zhang Y, Wang Z. Seismic behavior of reinforced concrete shear walls
Chilean Fondo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, FONDECYT through subjected to high axial loading. ACI Struct J 2000;97(5):739–50.
Grant #1110377 and FONDAP through Grant #15110017. The [10] Su R, Wong S. Seismic behavior of slender reinforced concrete shear walls
under high axial load ratio. Eng Struct 2007;29:1957–65.
authors would also like to thank the professors Carl Lüders and [11] Alarcon C. Influence of axial load in the sesmic behavior of reinforced concrete
Bozidar Stojadinovic for their support during the tests, and the walls with nonseismic detailing. Master of Science Thesis. Pontificia Universad
students R. Jünemann, A. Marihuén, R. Manieu, F. Quitral, J. Reme- Católica de Chile; 2013.
[12] Westenenk B, de la Llera J, Besa J, Jünemann R, Moehle J, Lüders C, et al.
sar, J. Rendic, M. Ochagavía, F. Riquelme, M. Saavedra, C. Barrueto Response of reinforced concrete buildings in Concepción during the Maule
and A. Gutiérrez for their contribution in the project. The authors Earthquake. Earthquake Sprectra 2012;28(S1):S257–80.
are also thankful to the engineers and technicians from DICTUC [13] Computers & Structures, Inc. ETABS v.9.7.1 2011. Berkeley, California, USA.
[14] Instituto Nacional de Normalización (INN). Earthquake resistant design of
S.A and the Laboratory of the Structural and Geotechnical
buildings, NCh433 Of.1996 Mod 2009. Santiago, Chile; 2009 [in Spanish].
Engineering Department of Pontificia Universidad Católica de [15] DS 60 MINVU (DS 60). Reinforced concrete design code, replacing D.S N 118,
Chile. 2010. Chilean Ministry of Housing and Urbanism, Diario Oficial; 13 December
2011 [in Spanish].
[16] Instituto Nacional de Normalización (INN). Structural design – general
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