Engineering Structures 29 (2007) 1957–1965

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Seismic behaviour of slender reinforced concrete shear walls under high

axial load ratio
R.K.L. Su ∗ , S.M. Wong
Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, China

Received 3 May 2006; received in revised form 24 October 2006; accepted 25 October 2006
Available online 1 December 2006

Abstract

An experimental study has been conducted on three reinforced concrete (RC) wall specimens to study the effects of axial load ratio (ALR)
and confinement on their performance to artificial earthquake loads. The walls in the form of a slender vertical cantilever with an aspect ratio
of 4, fabricated with high strength concrete and high longitudinal ratio, were tested. The effects of ALR and confinement on failure mode,
ductility capacity, strength degradation, and axial load capacity were critically examined. Through this study, ALR is identified as an indispensable
parameter for consideration in seismic performance assessment of RC shear walls. The influences of ALR on life safety, collapse prevention and
collapse performance level criteria of rectangular shear walls are also briefly discussed.
c 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Reinforced concrete; Axial load ratio; Shear wall; Experiment; Performance level; Seismic load

1. Introduction
To accommodate the nearly 7 million citizens in Hong
Kong, many medium- to high-rise residential buildings have
been erected since 1960. Among them, a vast majority of
the buildings include shear walls in their lateral load–resisting
system. While the shear wall structural system is efficient in
resisting wind load, its seismic performance is highly uncertain
due to the fact that the buildings are designed based on
British Standard BS8110 [1] and have no provision for seismic
resistance. The situation becomes more acute as the axial load
ratio (ALR), which is defined as applied axial load to axial
load capacity at a concrete section, could be relatively high
in medium- and high-rise reinforced concrete (RC) buildings.
A recent survey conducted for residential buildings in Hong
Kong revealed that values of ALR higher than 0.3 in shear wall
structures at working load conditions is not uncommon. The
value can easily increased to 0.5 when ultimate load conditions
are considered. Review of past experimental studies [3–9] has
found that the RC walls tested were mainly focused on low-
rise buildings in medium to high seismicity zones, and hence,
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +852 2859 2648; fax: +852 2559 5337.
E-mail address: klsu@hkucc.hku.hk (R.K.L. Su).
were almost all at low ALRs (≤0.2) and were usually squat.
Many of them were fabricated with an aspect ratio (=H/L) (H -
length of the cantilever and L-dimension in the bending plan)
of 1 to 2. This might be attributed to the fact that buildings
in moderate-to-high seismicity zones are often designed with a
low ALR. However, according to a recent building survey [2],
the structural walls embedded in most of the mid-rise residential
blocks in Hong Kong are of a high aspect ratio (≥4), which in
general leads to a high shear ratio (=M/V L) (M — bending
moment and V — shear force). As a result, a total of three wall
specimens (namely Units W1, W2 and W3) were fabricated
and tested under different ALRs (0.25–0.5), all with high
aspect ratios (=4). The first two specimens (Units W1 and
W2) are identical, in terms of their longitudinal and transverse
reinforcement contents. The last specimen (Unit W3) differed
from the rest in that it contained two-fold the amount of
transverse reinforcement as compared to the other two and will
be tested under an ALR identical to that of Unit W2.
2. Experimental setup
Fig. 1(a) shows the testing frame that has been used to test
the specimens. Each specimen was set up in a self-reaction
steel-loading frame. The wall element was connected to the top
and bottom hinges of the frame via the horizontal rigid beam

c 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

0141-0296/$ - see front matter
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1958 R.K.L. Su, S.M. Wong / Engineering Structures 29 (2007) 1957–1965

Table 1
Reinforcement content of the specimens

Specimen W1 W2 W3
Longitudinal reinforcement 8R8 & 8R6 8R8 & 8R6 8R8 & 8R6
Longitudinal reinforcement ratio (%) 1.96 1.96 1.96
Volumetric transverse reinforcement 0.54 0.54 1.08
ratio in the plastic hinge region (%)

Table 2
Material properties of the specimens

Concrete Cube strength (MPa) Cylinder strength (MPa)

Specimen W1 58.8 50.2
Specimen W2 50.9 41.8
Specimen W3 49.6 42.9

Reinforcement Yield strength (MPa) Ultimate tensile strength (MPa)

Longitudinal 412 540

reinforcement
Transverse 262 336
reinforcement

(a) Testing rig.

(b) Loading application and deformed
shape.
Fig. 1. Testing rig and load application.
and the flange, respectively. Upon loading, the test specimens
were subjected to both axial force and bending moment during
the testing process. The 6000 kN hydraulic jack exerted a pre-
compressive axial load (simulating the gravity load) to the
specimen. A pair of 500 kN servo-controlled hydraulic jacks
applied push-and-pull forces to the flange beam and a desirable
shear force (simulating the lateral seismic loads) was then
induced at the tip of the cantilever wall (as shown in Fig. 1(b)).
The three wall specimens fabricated were aimed at modeling
the typical shear wall panels in tall buildings in Hong
Kong and other low-seismicity zones such as Singapore and
United Kingdom where structural designs are based on British
codes. The specimens were designed in accordance with the
common practices assessed from the building survey [2],
especially for the amount of transverse reinforcement used.
The dimensions of the wall element are 400 × 80 × 1640 mm
(depth × breadth × height), which has an aspect ratio of 4.
Apart from geometrical similarity, the material used and the
reinforcement arrangement for Units W1 and W2 are also
compatible with local practices. Concrete with a cube strength
of 50–60 MPa, a high longitudinal reinforcement ratio of 2%
and transverse reinforcement with a volumetric ratio close to
0.5% were adopted in the tests as they have been widely used
for construction of reinforced concrete buildings of over 60
stories in Hong Kong. The vertical spacing of the transverse
reinforcement in all the specimens is 60 mm. To examine the
effect of confinement, transverse reinforcements were fixed in
the potential plastic hinge region of Unit W3, boosting the
relevant ratio to about 1.1%. The extra amount of transverse
reinforcements was bundled with the existing bars for ease of
concreting. The reinforcement arrangement of each specimen
is shown in Fig. 2. Table 1 summarizes key information of
the reinforcement arrangement of the three specimens. Table 2
presents the material properties used in the specimens. Fig. 3
shows the instrumentation arrangement of the LVDTs and strain
gauges in a specimen.
3. Loading history
The magnitude of the axial load is based on the pre-
determined ALRs assigned to each specimen. Units W2 and
W3 were tested under a higher ALR (∼0.5) while specimen
W1 was tested under a lower ALR (∼0.25). The axial load was
calculated from Eq. (1).
N = ALR · f c · A g (1)
where N is the required axial load, f c is the cylinder strength
of concrete on the test day, and A g is the cross-sectional area
 R.K.L. Su, S.M. Wong / Engineering Structures 29 (2007) 1957–1965
Fig. 2. RC details of the wall specimens.
of the wall. The axial load and ALR adopted for each specimen
is summarized in Table 3. Following the application of axial
load, reversed cyclic displacements were applied to induce a
cyclic bending moment in the wall. The displacement cycles
were illustrated in Fig. 4. The first cycle was load-controlled. In
this cycle, the wall was loaded to 0.75Mu and subsequently,
to −0.75Mu , where Mu is the theoretical moment capacity.
The corresponding lateral displacements measured by the
Linear Displacement Transducer (LDT) for the first cycle were
denoted as ∆+0.75 and ∆−0.75 , respectively. Elastic–plastic
behavior was assumed to estimate the ultimate moment Mu
(which is same as the yield moment M y ) of the wall specimens
based on BS8110 together with local Practice Note [10] with
all the partial safety factors of materials set to unity. The
nominal yield displacement ∆ y was then determined in the
tests by extrapolating the average absolute magnitude of the
displacements ∆+0.75 and ∆−0.75 using Eq. (2).
4

∆+0.75 + |∆−0.75 |
 at an early stage of loading. The cracks propagated inwards to
∆y = · . (2)
3 2
It is noted that as the actual moment capacity may be
slightly different from the calculated moment capacity, the
actual yield displacement which is calculated from the actual
moment capacity would be different from the nominal yield
displacement. With the nominal yield displacement known, the
lateral displacements at the end of the wall for the remaining
cycles could be determined. Starting from the second cycle,
the test shifted to be displacement-controlled. In the second
cycle, the wall was made to reach a state such that its nominal
1959
displacement ductility factor µ∆ , was equal to +1 and −1,
corresponding to a lateral displacement at the end of the
wall of +∆ y and −∆ y , respectively. In the third cycle and
thereafter, the loading process continued and the nominal
ductility factor kept increasing until the peak moment sustained
by the wall in a cycle was less than 50% of the measured peak
moment capacity or the wall failed suddenly due to out-of-plane
failure.
4. Results and discussions
4.1. Effect of ALR
The failure patterns of the specimens are shown in Fig. 5.
The specimens of Units W2 and W3 experienced significantly
different failure modes to that of Unit W1. Unit W1 exhibited
a flexural mode of failure in which flexural cracks developed
the core of the section, followed by the spalling of concrete
and gradual loss of strength. The test was terminated when the
moment capacity dropped to half of the peak moment and at that
time, some of the longitudinal reinforcements buckled. On the
other hand, Units W2 and W3, which were tested under an ALR
of 0.5, demonstrated a limited degree of damage. Cracks were
not observed until the final stage of loading and both specimens
failed by out-of-plane failure characterized by the formation of
inclined through cracks at the compressive concrete regions.
Spalling of the concrete cover due to high axial loads was
observed. Hence, high ALR will affect the failure cases of
1960 R.K.L. Su, S.M. Wong / Engineering Structures 29 (2007) 1957–1965

Table 3
Summary of ALR, axial loads and maximum ductility levels attained by the specimens

W1 W2 W3
Axial load ratio 0.25 0.5 0.5
Axial load (kN) 401 668 685
Nominal yield displacement, ∆ y (mm), 7.70 4.38 4.2
Actual yield displacement, ∆ y,a (mm) 9.17 7.57 7.69
∆
Ultimate displacement, ∆u (mm) 30.55 18.87 18.05
Actual ultimate displacement ductility factor, µ∆,a 3.33 2.49 2.35
Actual yield rotation, ϑ y,a (rad) 0.0072 0.0061 0.0061
ϑ Ultimate rotation, ϑu (rad) 0.0219 0.0137 0.0130
Actual ultimate rotation ductility factor, µϑ,a 3.05 2.25 2.13
Actual yield curvature, φ y,a (rad/m) 0.017 0.013 0.014
φ Ultimate curvature, φu (rad/m) 0.092 0.049 0.052
Actual ultimate curvature ductility factor, µφ,a 5.33 3.89 3.83

Fig. 4. Loading cycles.

a suppressive effect on ductility, attributable to the interaction

Fig. 3. Arrangement of instrumentation: (a) LVDTs, and (b) strain gauges.
walls with high strength concrete and high longitudinal and
transverse reinforcement ratios.
Table 3 lists the various ductility levels attained by the
specimens. The ultimate ductility factors have been calculated
at the points when the measured moment dropped to 80% of
the peak estimated moment. It was obvious that high ALR had
between the axial load and the bending moment. The ALR
of Unit W1 is less than the ratio corresponding to balanced
failure (both the maximum compressive strain in concrete
and maximum tensile strain in reinforcement reach their
corresponding yield strains). Hence, Unit W1 exhibited ductile
flexural failure. While the ALR of Units W2 and W3 were
higher than the ratio of balanced failure, they demonstrated
brittle compressive failure. In connection with this, Fig. 6 shows
energy dissipation of the test specimens during the loading
process, it can be seen that the energy dissipation of Unit W1
is much better than that of Units W2 or W3 owing to the
differences in failure modes.
Given the configurations of the specimens, the maximum
rotation ductility, which was measured at the tip of the
cantilever wall specimen, has been reduced from 3.05 (for W1)
to 2.25 (for W2) when the ALR increased from 0.25 to 0.5.
The other quantities, displacements and curvatures followed the
same trend and the change in ductility was evidence for the
transition of failure mode from flexure to compressive failure. A
comparison of the moment rotation relationships between Units
W1, W2 and W3 is given in Fig. 7, which clearly demonstrated
the influences of high ALR on the post-peak behavior of
walls under simulated seismic loads. Fig. 8 further shows the
longitudinal strain profiles in the outermost reinforcement at the
peak moment Mu and at 0.5Mu for specimens W1 and W2. The
tensile and compressive yield strains of the reinforcement are
 R.K.L. Su, S.M. Wong / Engineering Structures 29 (2007) 1957–1965
Fig. 5. Failure patterns of the specimens: (a) W1, (b) W2, and (c) W3.
Fig. 6. Energy dissipation of specimens against loading cycle.
1961
Fig. 7. Moment–rotation hysteretic curves, (a) Unit W1, (b) Unit W2, and (c)
Unit W3.
also indicated (as two vertical lines) in Fig. 8 for easy reference.
It can be observed in the figure that part of the section at the
base of the cantilever wall of Unit W1 was in tension when the
applied moment was equal to Mu , whereas the whole section of
Unit W2 was still in compression due to the pre-compressive
loading. As the yield curvature can be obtained by dividing the
concrete yield strain by the depth of zone under compressive
axial strains for Units W2 and W3, the high pre-compressive
load reduced the available compressive strains before reaching
the yield strain of concrete and causes lower yield curvatures of
Units W2 and W3 than that of Unit W1.
1962 R.K.L. Su, S.M. Wong / Engineering Structures 29 (2007) 1957–1965
Fig. 8. Longitudinal strain profile of the compression steel, (a) Unit W1 —
compression side, (b) Unit W1 — tension side, (c) Unit W2 — compression
side, and (d) Unit W2 — tension side.
4.2. Strength degradation
Owing to the combined effects of concrete softening,
spalling and crushing at the post-peak stage, the RC members
suffered from strength degradation despite the fact that strain
hardening might occur in reinforcement. The maximum levels
of moment attained in each cycle decreased with each applied
displacement excursion after the peak strength had been
reached. Fig. 9 compares the rate of percentage loss in strength
with deformation, which is given by the slope of the curves.
It could be observed that strength degradation commenced at
a lower level of deformation for specimens tested under a
higher ALR. Unit W2 reached its peak strength at a lower
drift ratio (∼0.8%) while Unit W1 reached its peak strength
as it experienced a 1% drift. In addition, the rate of strength
Fig. 9. Comparisons of percentage loss in strength versus drift ratio.
degradation of specimens under a lower axial load ratio is
smaller. It was also found that Unit W2 demonstrates a
much higher rate of loss in strength. In particular, Unit W2
experienced a dramatic reduction in strength after reaching a
drift ratio of 1.1%. The significant drop in strength was due
to out-of-plane failure at the compressive side of the wall
specimen. It could be concluded that under high ALR, RC walls
will experience a faster rate of strength loss.
4.3. Axial load capacity
No matter what forced-based or displacement-based
approach, most of the established seismic procedures focus on
the assurance of lateral capacities of the buildings to sustain
the relevant demands of earthquakes. Comparatively, much less
attention has been paid to the axial load capacity of the RC
members. However, after an earthquake event, if a building is
classified as operational, its structural members must be able
to resist a similar amount of gravity load as it did prior to the
actual event. Nonetheless, it is very likely that there will be a
certain degree of damage induced in members in an earthquake.
When RC members suffer damage, not only will there be a
reduction in axial strength, but also a decrease in axial stiffness,
both of which, once triggered, might not be recoverable after an
earthquake. When the scope of damage is extensive, the worst
outcome is that the members may not be able to support the
load and collapse of the structure might occur.
These experimental results have some implications for how
ALR might affect the degradation of axial load stiffness. In
the experiment, a pre-determined axial load was applied to
the specimen using a 6000 kN hydraulic jack underneath the
bottom hinge by means of pushing the entire specimen to
induce an axial load (see Fig. 1). A load cell was installed
between the bottom hinge and the hydraulic jack to measure
the axial load acting on the specimen. As the axial load was
not applied under force control, the axial stiffness dropped with
the increasing magnitude of lateral deformation leading to a
reduction in the applied axial load. Hence, by monitoring ALR
variations, the change in axial stiffness of the wall specimen
could be estimated.
 R.K.L. Su, S.M. Wong / Engineering Structures 29 (2007) 1957–1965
Fig. 10. Reduction in ALRs versus the number of cycles.
Fig. 10 shows the rate of axial stiffness softening given by
the gradient of the curves. Specimens subjected to initially
higher ALR experienced a greater and faster reduction as
compared with their counterpart starting with a smaller ratio.
As mentioned earlier, a reduction in the ALR was an indication
of the drop in axial stiffness of the specimen. Therefore,
it could be concluded that specimens under a higher ALR
experienced a greater and faster deterioration in axial stiffness.
The detrimental effect on the ALR possibly resulted from the
high initial compressive strain in the specimen, which caused
the cover of concrete to reach its ultimate strain earlier and to
spall off from the section. It was the loss in sectional area that
actually triggered the softening process.
4.4. Effect of confinement
To study the effects of confinement, the tested specimens
were configured with different arrangements of transverse
reinforcement in the potential plastic hinge region. Tested under
the same ALR (∼0.5) as Unit W2, Unit W3 has double the
Fig. 11. A schematic diagram illustrating the confined concrete zones in Units W2 and W3 (sections perpendicular to the main dimension of cross-section of walls).
1963
Fig. 12. Moment–rotation envelopes of the specimens.
amount of transverse reinforcement than that of both Units W1
and W2, as shown in Fig. 11. Bearing a higher volumetric
ratio of transverse reinforcement, both strength and ductility
of the materials were expected to increase. Therefore, Unit
W3 was anticipated to have better performance than the other
specimens. Moment–rotation relationships of Units W2 and W3
are displayed in Fig. 12 for comparison. It has been observed
that the measured moment capacity of Unit W3 was slightly
greater than that of Unit W2. The maximum moments attained
by Units W2 and W3 were 121.6 kN m and 125.59 kN m,
respectively.
The measured flexural strength also represented an
enhancement factor of 1.63 and 1.68, respectively, from the
theoretical strength calculated in accordance with BS8110.
The slightly larger strength enhancement factor for Unit W3
could be attributed to the enhanced volumetric transverse
reinforcement ratio. Nonetheless, the beneficial effect of
increasing the volumetric transverse reinforcement ratio by
a factor of two did not result in a significant increase in
strength. Similarly, Unit W3 demonstrated similar ductility
levels relative to Unit W2. The results obtained contradict our
expectation that Unit W3 should be far more ductile.
1964 R.K.L. Su, S.M. Wong / Engineering Structures 29 (2007) 1957–1965
Fig. 13. Comparison of the inter-story drift corresponding to various
performance levels of the wall specimens with those from SEAOC [12].
The less-than-expected increase in strength might be
explained by the actual effectiveness of confinement. A higher
volumetric transverse reinforcement ratio does not necessarily
mean better concrete confining conditions. Strictly speaking,
it is the effective confining pressure, not the volumetric
transverse reinforcement ratio that directly determines the
degree of confinement. According to Mander et al. [11],
the effectiveness of confinement is highly dependent on the
arrangement of transverse reinforcement. Therefore, solely
increasing the amount of the transverse reinforcement in the
specimen might not produce a larger degree of confinement.
A schematic diagram showing the confinement effects with
various transverse reinforcement arrangements is illustrated
in Fig. 11. The configuration might not be as effective as
if the transverse reinforcements were evenly spread along
the height rather than bundled. Nonetheless, if the transverse
reinforcement was fixed in such a way that the centre-to-centre
spacing is 30 mm, compaction of concrete would be difficult as
it was impossible to insert the poker vibrator during concreting,
without distorting the reinforcement cage. Therefore, closely
spaced transverse reinforcement could be a major constraint of
the experimental study as well as construction practices.
4.5. Drift performance criteria
As illustrated in the experiment, there were abrupt changes
in the deformability and failure mode when ALR increased
from 0.25 to 0.5. In addition, as demonstrated in Figs. 9 and
12, there existed a large discrepancy in the ductility levels
for Units W1 and W2. Fig. 12 shows the envelopes of the
moment–rotation relationships of the three specimens, where
the rotation could be interpreted as the drift of the specimens.
In Fig. 12, it can be observed that the drift ratio (measured at
the tip of cantilever) of Unit W1 at the end of the test was
2.2%, while the drift ratios of Units W2 and W3 at failure
were about 1.3%. Considering the extent of damage, both
ratios corresponded to the “collapse” state of the specimens.
The SEAOC Vision 2000 document [12] has specified the
seismic performance levels in terms of inter-story drift of
concrete structures. Five performance levels considered in the
document are (1) fully operational, (2) immediate occupancy,
(3) life safety, (4) collapse prevention and (5) collapse. For
the immediate occupancy, life safety and collapse prevention
performance levels, the structure is expected to have negligible
damage, light-to-moderate damage and severe damage without
causing collapse, respectively. Kurama et al. [13] further
elaborate the immediate occupancy performance level for post-
tensioned precast concrete walls as follows: (1) the wall
behaviour is nearly elastic, but nonlinear, with the nonlinear
behavior being largely due to gap opening along the joints with
a small contribution from nonlinear behaviour of the concrete
in compression, (2) the wall panels remain nearly linear-elastic
with little or no cracking, and with non-linear behaviour of
concrete in compression occurring only near the bottom corners
of the base panel; (3) the initial lateral load stiffness and
the lateral load strength of the wall are not reduced; (4) the
gravity load strength of the wall is not reduced; and (5) shear
slip along the horizontal joints does not occur. According
to damage descriptions of walls [13], the crack patterns of
the specimens and the measured moment–rotation curves (in
Fig. 12), the inter-story drifts corresponding to the immediate
occupancy performance level are found to be 0.3%–0.6% for
Unit W1 and 0.2–0.45 for Units W2 and W3. A comparison
of the performance criteria (drift ratios) corresponding to
immediate occupancy and collapse with those from SEAOC
Vision 2000 [12] are shown in Fig. 13. It can be observed
that the immediate occupancy performance level ranging from
0.2%–0.5% suggested by SEAOC [12] is in good agreement
with the present experimental results. Hence the immediate
occupancy and the fully operational performance criteria are
not sensitive to the ALR. However, under high ALR (Units W2
and W3), the drift ratio associated with collapse was found to
be 1.3%, which is much lower than the recommended value
(2.5%) from SEAOC [12] and is close to the lower limit of
the collapse prevention performance criterion (drift ratio of
1.5%–2.5%). As the drift ratio at collapse can be reduced
significantly under high ALR while the ratio associated with
the immediate occupancy performance level remains nearly
unchanged, the collapse prevention and life safety performance
criteria should be reduced accordingly, to cope with situations
of high ALR.
5. Conclusions
Three RC wall specimens with high aspect ratio, high con-
crete strength and high longitudinal steel ratio were fabricated
and tested under combined axial load, shear and moment. The
experimental findings are summarized as follows:
(1) The effectiveness of confinement is found to be highly
dependent on the arrangement of the transverse reinforce-
ment. Simply increasing the amount of the transverse
reinforcement in the specimen might not produce a larger
degree of confinement.
(2) Axial load ratio (ALR) has significant influence on the
deformability and failure mode of the specimens. The
maximum rotation ductility decreased with increases in
 R.K.L. Su, S.M. Wong / Engineering Structures 29 (2007) 1957–1965
ALR. An abrupt out-of-plane compressive failure mode was
observed when ALR was high. Furthermore, an increase in
ALR has a detrimental effect on strength degradation and
energy dissipation of reinforced concrete walls.
(3) ALR is an important factor in the life safety and collapse
prevention performance criteria and has not yet been fully
accounted for in the SEAOC Vision 2000 document [12].
More experiments are required to be conducted with other
ALRs to develop a set of more rational ALR dependent
performance criteria.
Acknowledgements
The work described in this paper was substantially supported
by grants from the Research Grants Council of the Hong
Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project Nos.
HKU7103/03E and HKU7129/03E) whose support is gratefully
acknowledged. Invaluable contribution by final-year project
student Mr. Chris TH Wong in conducting the experimental
testing is also gratefully acknowledged.
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