Experimental Study of Shear-Critical

Reinforced-Concrete Shear Walls under

Tension-Bending Shear-Combined Cyclic Load
Xin Nie 1; Jia-Ji Wang 2; Mu-Xuan Tao 3; Jian-Sheng Fan 4;
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Y. L. Mo, F.ASCE 5; and Zi-Yu Zhang 6

Abstract: Four shear-critical RC shear walls were tested under a tension-bending-shear load to replicate seismic behavior of the bottom
shear wall in high-rise buildings. The axial tension ratio ranged from 0 to 0.5 and the aspect ratio was 1.06. The shear compression failure
mode was observed for each specimen, characterized by the formation of an inclined crack at 45° and direct strut action. The shear
displacement was a dominant deformation component throughout the loading history. When the axial tension force increased from 0 to
1,293 kN, the ultimate drift ratio increased from 0.90% to 2.38%, while shear capacity linearly decreased from 1,507 to 895 kN.
The load–displacement curve showed a significant pinching effect and strength degradation effect. In addition, this paper reports an
innovative experimental method to obtain shear resistance of transverse reinforcement (V s ) based on the plasticity theory and strain measuring
result. Test results using this method show that not all horizontal distributed rebar yield simultaneously at the ultimate capacity. The US
code-specified shear strength contribution of horizontal distributed rebar was found to be unsafe for each test specimen. Finally, a database
of RC shear walls subject to combined tension-bending-shear load was established to evaluate shear strength formulas in design codes. The
comparison showed the Chinese code predicted spuriously higher tension-shear capacity, while the US code predicted conservative capacity.
Based on the developed database, a simplified design formula is proposed with adequate safety concerns and accuracy. DOI: 10.1061/
(ASCE)ST.1943-541X.0002596. © 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
Author keywords: Reinforced concrete; Shear wall; Tension-bending-shear; Shear compression; Force transfer mechanism; Axial tension
ratio; Shear strength.

Introduction moment induced by heavy seismic load (Wang et al. 2019;

In the seismic design of high-rise structures, shear walls are fre-
quently subject to significant in-plane shear and overturning
1
Assistant Professor, Key Laboratory of Civil Engineering Safety
and Durability of China Education Ministry, Dept. of Civil Engineering,
Tsinghua Univ., Beijing 100084, China. Email: xinnie@tsinghua
.edu.cn
2
Postdoctoral Associate, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Tsinghua Univ.,
Beijing 100084, China; Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
Univ. of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-4003 (corresponding author).
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6728-2685. Email: jwang215@
central.uh.edu
3
Associate Professor, Key Laboratory of Civil Engineering Safety
and Durability of China Education Ministry, Dept. of Civil Engineering,
Tsinghua Univ., Beijing 100084, China. Email: taomuxuan@tsinghua
.edu.cn
4
Professor, Key Laboratory of Civil Engineering Safety and Durability
of China Education Ministry, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Tsinghua Univ.,
Beijing 100084, China. Email: fanjsh@tsinghua.edu.cn
5
John and Rebecca Moores Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environ-
mental Engineering, Univ. of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-4003. Email:
yilungmo@central.uh.edu
6
Ph.D. Candidate, Key Laboratory of Civil Engineering Safety and
Durability of China Education Ministry, Dept. of Civil Engineering,
Tsinghua Univ., Beijing 100084, China. Email: ziyu-zha17@mails
.tsinghua.edu.cn
Note. This manuscript was submitted on December 9, 2018; approved
on October 7, 2019; published online on February 18, 2020. Discussion
period open until July 18, 2020; separate discussions must be submitted
for individual papers. This paper is part of the Journal of Structural
Engineering, © ASCE, ISSN 0733-9445.
Wang 2019; Nie et al. 2019a, b). In the 2010 Chile Maule earth-
quake, the only collapsed building exceeding three stories was the
Alto Rio apartment in Concepción (Rojas et al. 2011). As shown in
Fig. 1 (Kwon et al. 2011), the collapsed Alto Rio apartment was
composed of RC shear walls, with 15 stories aboveground and two
stories of basement. Significant fracture of longitudinal rebar and
concrete was observed in the bottom shear walls, indicating that the
collapse of the Alto Rio apartment was attributed to combined ten-
sion-bending-shear load induced by heavy seismic load (Song and
Lepage 2012). Zhang et al. (2017) conducted nonlinear pushover
analysis and nonlinear time-history analysis on the Alto Rio apart-
ment based on the beam-truss model in OpenSees. The nonlinear
time-history analysis showed the maximum principal tensile strain
of the shear wall was 0.0136 and the maximum principal tensile
strain of many shear walls exceeded 0.008, which significantly ex-
ceeded the yield strain of reinforcement. Wang et al. (2018a) also
reported that significant tension-bending load was observed for de-
sign of a 301-m superhigh-rise prototype building in China with
spectral acceleration of building at design-basis earthquake
(DBE) equal to 0.085g. El-Tawil et al. (2002) and El-Tawil and
Kuenzli (2002) conducted finite-element (FE) simulation on a
coupled shear wall system with steel coupling beam. The FE result
showed that coupling ratios ranging from 30% to 45% were well
suited for high-seismic-risk regions, while a coupling ratio of 60%
induced significant cracking in RC shear walls. Shi et al. (2013)
tested a coupled shear wall system consisting of an RC shear wall
and steel coupling beam with a coupling ratio of 45%. The test re-
sults showed the overstrength effect of a steel coupling beam
caused significant cracking and rebar pullout failure in RC shear

© ASCE 04020047-1 J. Struct. Eng.

J. Struct. Eng., 2020, 146(5): 04020047

Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by Indian Institute of Technology, Madras on 10/05/22. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
Fig. 1. Collapsed reinforced-concrete residential building Alto Rio apartment in the 2010 Chile Maule earthquake: (a) illustration of the building
before the earthquake; and (b) collapsed building after the earthquake. (Reprinted from Kwon et al. 2011, © ASCE.)
walls in the tension side. The test result indicates the coupling ratio
of 45% may induce significant axial tension in coupled shear wall
systems. In general, previous research showed axial tension force in
high-rise buildings and coupled shear wall systems.
In response to the collapse of the Alto Rio apartment, the
Chinese “Technical Specification for Review of Design of Ultra-
High-Rise Buildings” (CMC 2015b) required limiting the nominal
tensile stress σN of an RC shear wall under DBE as follows:
T with axial tension ratio exceeding 0.47.
σN ¼ ≤ f tk ð1Þ
Ac þ EEcs Al
where T = axial tension force; Ac = concrete area; Al = vertical
rebar area; and Es and Ec = elastic modulus of steel and concrete,
respectively.
Because of the strict restriction of nominal tensile stress as per
Chinese specifications (CMC 2015b), the seismic design of high-
rise buildings in China generally requires thick RC shear walls
and large reinforcement ratios. In response to the Chinese speci-
fication (CMC 2015a) and the collapse of the Alto Rio building,
recent experimental and numerical studies have been devoted to
investigating the seismic behavior of RC shear walls under com-
bined tension-bending-shear load. Lai (2015) tested five RC shear
walls under tension-shear load and reported that the specimens
exhibited shear-critical failure mode. As reported by Lai (2015),
when the test axial tension force increased from 0 to 580 kN, the
shear capacity decreased from 603 to 427 kN. Ji et al. (2018)
tested six RC shear walls under axial tension ratios ranging from
0 to 1. They observed shear-sliding failure under moderate axial
tension ratios (ranging from 0.23 to 0.63) and sliding failure
under high axial tension ratios (ranging from 0.80 to 1.00).
Cheng et al. (2019) further tested four flexural-critical RC shear
walls with aspect ratio of 1.8 and observed flexural-sliding failure
for specimen with nominal tensile stress σN ranging from 0.33 to
0.98. On the contrary, flexural failure was observed for specimen
with σN of 1.73. Ren (2018) tested 11 RC shear walls under fixed
axial tension force and hysteretic lateral load. The specimens ex-
hibited shear compression failure for a moderate axial tension ra-
tio and sliding failure for a high axial tension ratio. In addition,
Ren (2018) also tested two RC shear walls under hysteretic axial
tension and compression loads. The test result showed the shear
capacity and ductility was significantly influenced by hysteretic
axial load. FE analysis was also reported by Ren (2018) to
© ASCE 04020047-2
J. Struct. Eng., 2020, 146(5): 04020047
simulate the load–displacement skeleton curve. Ren (2018) fur-
ther investigated an RC frame-core wall of 99-m height with a
nonlinear FE model. The nonlinear pushover analysis showed
the nominal tensile stress σN reached 1.44f tk and caused signifi-
cant stiffness degradation and increased the axial compression
force of the shear wall under compression, thereby causing the
flexural failure of the bottom shear wall. Wang et al. (2018a)
tested six composite shear walls under tension-bending load and
showed that anchorage failure was observed for some specimens
Based on previous literature, the main problems in developing
tension-shear design methods for RC shear walls are deduced as
follows:
• A large proportion of test specimens failed in shear-sliding
failure or sliding failure mode, which were characterized by sig-
nificant sliding deformation along the interface between the
shear wall and the foundation beam (Paulay et al 1982; Ji et al.
2018; Ren 2018).
• The shear capacity (V) is composed of shear strength of con-
crete (V c ) and shear strength of horizontal distributed rebar (V s ).
The V s result has not been investigated by strain measurement
results, and the ACI 318 (ACI 2014)–specified shear force con-
tribution of the horizontal distributed rebar was not validated by
RC shear walls with axial tension.
• The lack of a database study significantly restricts the engineer-
ing design of high-rise buildings.
In response to these problems, four RC shear walls were loaded
under combined tension-bending-shear load in this research. The
key features of this study are concluded as follows:
• The shear-sliding failure was prevented by applying sufficient
anchorage rebar at the interface between the RC shear wall and
the foundation beam. Therefore, the shear-critical failure mode
was achieved in the developed test program.
• An innovative measuring method was designed to obtain V s
in shear wall specimens. Sufficient strain gauges were ap-
plied at the horizontal distributed rebar along 45° diagonals.
The V s result obtained was based on the theory of plasticity and
strain measurement results. The ACI code-specified shear ca-
pacity (ACI 2014) of horizontal distributed rebar (V sACI ) was
evaluated.
• The database of tension-bending-shear tests on RC shear walls
was established and design formulas (CMC 2010b; ACI 2014)
were examined. A simplified design formula is proposed with
adequate safety concerns and accuracy.
J. Struct. Eng.
 Experimental Program
Test Specimens and Test Setup
In the test program, the axial tension force was first applied and
maintained throughout the loading history. The actual loading of
coupled walls in a building would induce alternate tension with
high compression loads. The axial tension leads to decreasing the
flexural and shear capacity, while the axial compression force may
contribute to the flexural and shear capacity. Therefore, this test
program maintained the axial tension force to investigate the most
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unfavorable condition for tension-shear capacity of RC shear walls.
However, the test results should be limited to the loading condition
that fixed axial tension force was maintained, while the hysteretic
axial tension and compression load may significantly reduce the
ductility result (Ren 2018). Four RC shear walls (denoted as T00,
T30, T40, and T50) were designed for the tension-bending-shear
test. The nomenclature denotes the axial tension ratio t in percent-
age, which is formulated as proposed by Wang et al. (2018a) as
follows:
T length was guaranteed to avoid pullout of the vertical rebar in the
t¼ ð2Þ
f yl Al
where t = axial tension ratio; T = axial tension force; fyl = yield
strength of vertical rebar; and Al = area of vertical rebar.
The design details of each RC shear wall specimen are given
in Table 1. The axial tension force increased from 0 to 1,293 kN.
As formulated in Eq. (1), the nominal tensile stress of concrete
increased from 0 to 1.16f tk , thereby slightly exceeding the Chinese
code requirements (CMC 2010b).
The loading apparatus is shown in Figs. 2 and 3. The loading
device reported by Wang et al. (2018a) was adopted and revised to
adapt to the dimensions of the test specimens. The axial tension
load was applied by two MTS vertical actuators of 150-t capacity.
The axial tension load was maintained at a fixed level, and hori-
zontal hysteretic load was applied by two 200-t horizontal actua-
tors. As shown in Fig. 2(a), the axial load of each vertical actuator
was maintained at 0.5T and the vertical displacement of the vertical
actuator was not controlled. Therefore, the vertical actuators ap-
plied axial tension force to the specimen without introducing a
second-order effect. A hinge joint was applied for each actuator to
release secondary moment. In addition, the loading system will not
introduce frictional force in the horizontal direction. Four out-of-
plane constraints were applied at the top of the loading beam to
avoid an out-of-plane buckling failure mode, which was unfavor-
able for the in-plane test. The 1-m-high RC foundation beam was
designed for each specimen and 12 high-strength lead screws were
used to anchor the foundation beam to the laboratory floor.
The specimen design is shown in Figs. 2 and 3. The walls were
1,500 mm high, 1,700 mm wide, and 120 mm thick. The distance
between the top of the foundation beam and the horizontal actuator
(denoted as H) was 1,800 mm. Therefore, the aspect ratio was 1.06.
As shown in Fig. 2(c), the 250-mm-long boundary element was
equipped with 14 longitudinal rebar of 16-mm diameter in order
Table 1. Design details of each wall specimen
Specimen T (kN) t σN =f tk f cu (MPa)
T00 0 0 0 62.2
T30 776 0.30 0.70 62.2
T40 1,034 0.40 0.93 62.2
T50 1,293 0.50 1.16 62.2
© ASCE
J. Struct. Eng., 2020, 146(5): 04020047
to apply sufficient flexural strength and avoid sliding failure.
Six-millimeter plain tie bars and 8-mm stirrups were also applied
at 50-mm spacing in the boundary element to apply an adequate
confinement effect as per Chinese code (CMC 2010a). A 6-mm
plain rebar was applied as horizontal distributed rebar and vertical
distributed rebar at 100-mm spacing. Six-millimeter tie bars were
also applied in the wall web at 100-mm spacing. In addition, sliding
failure has been reported by previous tension-shear tests of RC
shear walls (Ji et al. 2018; Ren 2018). The sliding failure mode was
caused by significant sliding deformation along the interface be-
tween the RC shear wall and the foundation beam, and the sliding
capacity was generally contributed by the vertical rebar and anchor-
age rebar. In order to prevent sliding failure, a total of 16 additional
anchorage rebar of 16-mm diameter were applied at the top and
bottom of the RC shear wall.
As for the connection between the shear wall, foundation beam,
and loading beam, two steel 25-mm-thick end plates were applied
at the top and bottom of the shear wall. The vertical rebar in the
boundary element were welded to the end plates with a plug weld.
The vertical distributed rebar in the wall web and anchorage rebar
were welded to the end plates with butt weld. Sufficient anchorage
shear wall.
Material Properties
High-strength concrete of 60-MPa grade was poured in three
batches, including the foundation beam, the shear wall, and the
loading beam. The compressive strength of the concrete was ob-
tained from testing a total of 12 cubes of 150 -m length. The con-
crete strength of the shear walls was 62.2 MPa as given in Table 1.
The reinforcement bars had nominal yield strength of 300 MPa. The
yield strength fy , ultimate strength fu , strain at initial hardening
εsh , ultimate strain εu , and hardening modulus were obtained from
three duplicate coupon tests for each diameter as given in Table 2.
Loading Program
The loading program is divided into the following three stages:
• Axial loading stage: the axial tension load was applied gradually
to the designed axial force in four levels (0.25T, 0.5T, 0.75T,
and 1.0T). For each axial force level, a hysteretic horizontal load
of 100 kN was applied.
• Horizontal force control stage: upon reaching the designed axial
tension load, the hysteretic shear load was increased at a fixed
increment of 100 kN.
• Displacement control stage: after the lateral drift ratio reached
0.5%, the loading program was switched to displacement
control and increased at a fixed increment of 0.5%.
Two cycles were repeated for each drift ratio to obtain its
strength degradation behavior. The loading to the south was de-
noted as positive loading (Sþ) and the loading to the north was
denoted as negative loading (N−).
Test Measurements
As shown in Fig. 4(a), sufficient strain measurements were applied
for each specimen. A total of eight strain gauges were applied at
vertical rebar at the 100-mm-high section. In addition, a total of 29
strain gauges were applied at the horizontal distributed rebar along
two inclined diagonals of 45°. In the following discussion, the
strain measurement results of these horizontal distributed rebar will
be used to obtain V s . As shown in Fig. 4(b), displacement trans-
ducers were applied in each specimen. The displacement transduc-
ers D9–D12 were used to record lateral displacement and sliding
04020047-3 J. Struct. Eng.
 460
200t actuator (North) 200t actuator (South)

600
Anchorage
rebar 8D16

Column vertical
rebar 14D16
Column Stirrup
D8@50
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1500
150
150t Vertical actuator
(North) 150t Vertical actuator
(South)

1000
600 1700 600 600

(a) (b)
Column Tie bar Column Stirrup
D6@50 D8@50

Column vertical rebar 14D16 Vertical distributed rebar D6@100 Horizontal distributed rebar D6@100 Anchorage rebar 8D16
250 1200 250

(c)

Fig. 2. Schematic plot of loading apparatus and test specimen: (a) test setup; (b) side view; and (c) cross-section view.

Tension-Shear Test Results

Fig. 3. Loading apparatus and test specimen T50.
displacement of the foundation beam. The result of D9 was sub-
tracted from D12 to derive lateral drift Δ. In addition, diagonal dis-
placement transducers (D7–D8) were applied to record shear
deformation, and vertical displacement transducers (D1–D6) were
used to record the flexural deformation component.
Failure Mode
Shear compression failure was observed for each test specimen.
The failure mode at peak load is shown in Fig. 5 and the failure
mode after the test is shown in Fig. 6. The observed phenomenon
is illustrated as follows:
• T00: The axial load was not applied for T00. At the lateral load
of 400 kN (0.06% drift), four flexural cracks of 0.05 mm in-
itiated at the boundary element, and shear cracks of 0.10 mm
were observed in the wall web. With increasing cyclic shear
load, the shear crack width grew more rapidly than the flexural
crack width. At 0.63% drift, the shear crack width reached
1.5 mm and the crack did not close under reversed loading.
As shown in Fig. 5(a), upon reaching the peak load (0.83%
drift), a major diagonal crack fully developed. At 1.0% drift,
the concrete cover in the south boundary element spalled and
concrete crushed along the major diagonal crack. As shown in
Fig. 6(a), crushing of concrete after the test coincided with the
diagonal cracks.
• T30: Surface concrete was intact after applying the axial ten-
sion load of 776 kN. At a lateral load of 200 kN (0.03% drift),

© ASCE 04020047-4 J. Struct. Eng.

J. Struct. Eng., 2020, 146(5): 04020047

 Table 2. Material strength of the steel specimens
Nominal yield Measured yield Measured tensile Strain at initial Ultimate Hardening
Diameter strength, f y;n (MPa) strength, f y (MPa) strength, f u (MPa) f y =f u hardening, εsh (%) strain, εu (%) modulus (MPa)
6-mm plain rebar 300 402 602 0.67 1.57 13.6 1,470
10-mm deformed rebar 300 415 648 0.64 0.45 11.1 2,102
16-mm deformed rebar 300 448 606 0.74 2.33 13.7 1,156

D9

10050 250
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D10
Horizontal
D11
distributed rebar
D6@100 LVDT

750
Vertical rebar D3 D6
strain gauges D8 D7
Horizontal rebar
strain gauges

650
D2 D5
100
Column vertical
rebar D16 D1 D4

100
D12

50
Vertical distributed
rebar D6

(a) (b)

Fig. 4. Test measurements: (a) strain measurement on rebar; and (b) displacement transducer.

Fig. 5. Test failure mode at peak load: (a) T00; (b) T30; (c) T40; and (d) T50.

© ASCE 04020047-5 J. Struct. Eng.

J. Struct. Eng., 2020, 146(5): 04020047

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Fig. 6. Test failure mode after the test: (a) T00; (b) T30; (c) T40; and (d) T50.
a flexural crack initiated at the bottom of the shear wall, and a
diagonal shear crack of 0.15 mm initiated at 300 kN lateral load
(0.1% drift). Yielding of the horizontal distributed rebar initiated
and the inclined cracks extended across the whole shear wall at
600-kN lateral load (0.22% drift). Spalling of cover concrete
was observed at the center of the specimen at 700-kN lateral
load (0.35% drift). At peak load (0.63% drift), the interface be-
tween the boundary element and the foundation beam cracked.
However, sliding deformation was not observed at the interface
between the shear wall and the foundation beam in the loading
history. Therefore, the sliding failure mode was not the govern-
ing failure mode for T30. At a lateral drift of 1.25%, significant
crushing of concrete was observed at the center of the shear wall
and bottom of the boundary element. The vertical distributed
rebar was revealed and kinked after the crushing of concrete.
Specimens T40 and T50 had similar failure modes as T30.
As shown in Figs. 6(b–d), the crushing region of T30, T40, and
T50 was located at a 30° inclination, which was different from
the 45° inclination as shown in Figs. 5(b–d).
In conclusion, the following features were observed in each
test specimen: (1) diagonal cracking at 45° was observed at ulti-
mate capacity; (2) spalling and crushing of the concrete was ob-
served in both loading directions after passing the peak loads;
(3) fracture of the horizontal distributed rebar was not observed
throughout the loading history; (4) the shear capacity of each
specimen was significantly higher than the shear capacity of the
© ASCE 04020047-6
J. Struct. Eng., 2020, 146(5): 04020047
horizontal distributed rebar of 341 kN (ACI 2014), therefore the
shear capacity of each specimen mostly originates from the direct
strut action, and the contribution of horizontal distributed rebar
was relatively limited; and (5) the ultimate capacity of T00 was
1,507 kN in positive direction and 1,353 kN in negative direction,
which both exceeded the design capacity of diagonal compres-
sion failure mode (1,223 kN for T00) as per ACI 318 (ACI 2014).
Therefore, based on ACI 318 (ACI 2014), the test capacity was
consistent with the ACI code requirement for the diagonal com-
pression failure mode. Based on the aforementioned test observa-
tions, the failure mode of each test specimen was categorized as
shear compression failure.
Force–Displacement Relationship
The load–displacement hysteretic curves are plotted in Fig. 7. The
tension-shear specimens exhibited a significant pinching effect
in the loading history. For each specimen, after reaching the peak
load, the second cycle of hysteretic curve showed notably lower
capacity than the first cycle in each displacement level. Apart from
that, when the axial tension ratio increased from 0 to 0.5, the ulti-
mate drift ratio increased from 0.90% (T00) to 2.38% (T50), while
the shear capacity dropped from 1,507 kN (T00) to 895 kN (T50).
As recommended by Hiraishi (1984), shear displacement is
obtained by the diagonal displacement transducers [D7 and D8 in
Fig. 4(b)] as follows and plotted in Fig. 7:
J. Struct. Eng.
 d the loading history, which was coincident with the test observation
Δs ¼ ðδ − δ 1 Þ
2b 2
where Δs = shear displacement; d = original length of the diagonal;
b = width of the shear panel; and δ i = measured result of displace-
ment transducers.
For RC shear walls loaded under combined compression and
lateral loads, Hiraishi (1984) reported Eq. (3) overestimated Δs ;
Massone and Wallace (2004) reported Eq. (3) may induce relative
error of Δs up to 31%. Beyer et al. (2011) further investigated
the ratio of shear deformation to flexural deformation based on 34
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ð3Þ
that all specimens failed in shear compression mode, rather than
sliding failure or flexural failure. The load–shear displacement
curves also showed significant pinching effect.
The load–displacement skeleton curves of each specimen are
shown in Fig. 8. Based on the load–displacement skeleton curves,
the T00 specimen had notably higher initial stiffness and capacity.
After reaching the peak load, the shear force dropped rapidly. After
reaching the lateral drift of 1%, the postpeak shear strength of T00
was even lower than that of T30. The load–displacement skeleton
curves also showed the inverse relationship between axial tension

slender structural RC walls. In this research, Eq. (3) was adopted
because the authors did not apply an adequate number of vertical
displacements to record the flexural displacement and may over-
estimate Δs .
The test result showed that the shear deformation was the
dominant deformation component in each specimen throughout
force and the initial stiffness as well as ultimate capacity. On the
contrary, the ductility of specimens increased with respect to the
axial tension ratio. This is attributed to the fact that the applied axial
tension force postponed the crushing of concrete at the boundary
element and center of the wall web in the shear compression fail-
ure mode.

/H /H
-1% -0.015 -1% -0.5% 0 0.5% 1% 1.5% 2% -2.5% -2% -1.5% -1% -0.5% 0 0.5% 1% 1.5% 2% 2.5%
1600 1200

1200
800

800

400
400
F/kN
F/kN

0 0

-400
-400

-800
ss
-800
-1200
ss
-1600 -1200
--40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 -50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50
(a) /mm (b) /mm

/H /H
--2.5% -2% -1.5% -1% -0.5% 0 0.5% 1% 1.5% 2% 2.5% -3% -2% -1% 0 1% 2% 3%
1200 1200

800 800

400 400
F/kN

F/kN

0 0

-400 --400

ss
-800 --800

ss
-1200 -1200
-50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50 --60 --40 -20
- 0 20 40 60
(c) /mm (d) /mm

Fig. 7. Load–displacement hysteretic curves of the tension-bending tests: (a) T00; (b) T30; (c) T40; and (d) T50.

© ASCE 04020047-7 J. Struct. Eng.

J. Struct. Eng., 2020, 146(5): 04020047

 /H
where fyh = yield strength of the horizontal distributed rebar;
-2.5% -2% -1.5% -1% -0.5% 0 0.5% 1% 1.5% 2% 2.5%
1600 Ash = cross-section area of the horizontal distributed rebar;
s = horizontal rebar spacing; and hw0 = effective depth of the
1200 shear wall.
As shown in Fig. 9, the plot of V s versus Δ was stable and
800 exhibited good energy consumption ability in the loading history.
In comparison, the plot of total shear force versus Δ (Fig. 7)
400
showed a significant pinching effect. This comparison showed that
the pinching effect was attributed to the hysteretic pinching behav-
F/kN

0
ior of concrete instead of the horizontal distributed rebar, which
-400
was also numerically validated by Mo et al. (2008), Hsu and Mo
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(2010), and Luu et al. (2017) and experimentally observed by Hsu

T00 and Zhu (2002). The axial tension force had a minor influence on
-800
T30
T40 the V s result. In addition, Specimens T00, T30, and T50 reached
-1200 T50 the ACI-specified shear strength of horizontal rebar V sACI in the
positive direction. However, V sACI was not reached in the negative
-1600 direction for each specimen. The reasons may be concluded as
-50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50
follows:
/mm
• The shear compression failure mode was observed and the
Fig. 8. Load–displacement skeleton curves of the tension-bending crushing of the inclined concrete strut was the major force trans-
tests. fer mechanism. Therefore, the horizontal distributed rebar was
unable to reach its theoretical shear capacity in both directions.
• In each cycle, loading to the south was first applied (denoted as
Sþ) and loading to the north was subsequently applied (denoted
Shear Force Contribution of Rebar as N−). Therefore, the cracking of concrete was first developed
In order to investigate the force transfer mechanism of the tension- in the positive loading and the horizontal distributed rebar
shear specimens, a total of 29 strain gauges were applied at the was more susceptible to fully yielding in the positive direction.
horizontal distributed rebar as shown in Fig. 4(a). The strain gauges However, when negative loading to the north was applied, the
were located at the diagonals of shear walls with an inclination crack closure and shear sliding along the cracks reduced V s
angle of 45° and Fig. 5(a) shows that the diagonal cracks at peak under negative loading.
load went through the location of strain gauges. Therefore, the • Although most horizontal distributed rebar yielded in the load-
shear force contribution of the horizontal distributed rebar (V s ) is ing history, these rebar were unable to yield simultaneously.
formulated as follows: Therefore, the V s result of rebar as formulated in Eq. (4) was
lower than V sACI .
8 • If the diagonal cracking did not exactly pass the location of
>
> X 15
>
> V rs ðiÞ if Δ > 0 strain gauges on horizontal distributed rebar, the method devel-
>
<
i¼1 oped in this section may slightly underestimate V s .
Vs ¼ ð4Þ As shown in Fig. 5, the diagonal cracking at peak load generally
>
> X 15
>
>
>
: V ls ðiÞ if Δ < 0 passed through the location of strain gauges. However, the diagonal
i¼1 cracking did not extend to the boundary element at peak load,
which may influence the accuracy of Eq. (5).
where V ls ðiÞ = axial force of the horizontal rebar at the diagonal
from the bottom left side to the top right side; V rs ðiÞ = axial force
of the horizontal rebar at the diagonal from the bottom right side to Strength and Displacement Capacity
the top left side; and Δ = lateral displacement. This method may Table 3 illustrates yield displacement Δy , yield drift ratio θy , yield
underestimate V s if the diagonal cracking did not exactly pass load V y , drift at peak load Δmax , shear capacity V test, peak shear
through the location of strain gauges. force of horizontal rebar V sm, ultimate displacement Δu , ultimate
The axial force of the horizontal distributed rebar is obtained drift ratio θu , and displacement ductility ratio μ of the specimens.
from the strain measurement result based on the following two The yield displacement was obtained by dividing the peak load by
assumptions (Wang et al. 2018b, c): (1) uniaxial elastic-plastic the initial stiffness of specimen, which was also recommended by
model was assumed for rebar and the flexural stress and shear Uang and Bruneau (2018) and ASCE/SEI 7 (ASCE 2016). In this
stress of horizontal distributed rebar was neglected; and (2) linear research, the initial stiffness was determined when the axial tension
kinematic hardening was assumed and the kinematic hardening load was fully applied and a small lateral load of 100 kN was ap-
modulus was calculated from the coupon test as listed in Table 2. plied. The ultimate displacement and displacement ductility ratio
The axial stress was calculated from the strain measurement re- were calculated as recommended by Han and Li (2010). The ulti-
sult based on a return mapping algorithm as recommended by mate displacement Δu was the lateral drift when the capacity
Simo and Hughes (2006). dropped by 15%. The ductility ratio was the ratio between Δu
The V s is plotted versus lateral displacement Δ in Fig. 9. and Δy . As given in Table 3, the lower V s developed in the negative
The yield strength of the horizontal distributed rebar recom- direction was consistent with the lower overall shear capacity V test
mended by ACI 341 (2014) is formulated as follows and plotted developed in the negative direction.
in Fig. 9: As given in Table 3, the shear capacity V test in the positive
direction (S+) was slightly higher than V test in the negative direc-
Ash tion (N−). The difference between positive capacity and negative
V sACI ¼ f yh h ð5Þ
s w0 capacity was less than 11% for each specimen, thus indicating that

© ASCE 04020047-8 J. Struct. Eng.

J. Struct. Eng., 2020, 146(5): 04020047

 /H /H
-0.8% -0.4% 0 0.4% 0.8% -2% -1% 0 1% 2%
400 400

Vs /kN 200 200

Vs /kN
0 0

-200 -200
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Vs Vs
V sACI V sACI

-400 -400
-15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 -40 -20 0 20 40
(a) /mm (b) /mm

-1.5% -1% -0.5% 0 0.5% 1% 1.5% -1% -0.5% 0 0.5% 1%

400 400

200 200
Vs /kN

Vs /kN
0 0

-200 Vs -200 Vs
V sACI V sACI

-400 -400
-30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 -25 -20 -15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15 20
(c) /mm (d) /mm

Fig. 9. Shear force contribution of horizontal distributed rebar (V s ): (a) T00; (b) T30; (c) T40; and (d) T50.

Table 3. Test results of the tension-bending-shear specimens

Δy θy Vy Δmax θmax V test V sm V sm =V test V sm =V sACI Δu θu
Specimen Direction (mm) (%) (kN) (mm) (%) (kN) (kN) (%) (%) (mm) (%) μ
T00 S+ 1.8 0.10 444.6 11.5 0.64 1,507 322 21 94 16.2 0.90 9.0
N− −1.6 −0.09 −542.1 −15.0 −0.83 −1,353 −269 20 79 −18.1 −1.00 11.3
T30 S+ 3.0 0.17 625.1 17.9 0.99 1,154 339 29 99 33.1 1.84 11.0
N− −2.9 −0.16 −417.3 −21.9 −1.22 −1,100 −236 21 69 −33.5 −1.86 11.6
T40 S+ 3.1 0.17 548.8 17.9 1.00 1,105 299 27 88 36.2 2.01 11.7
N− −2.8 −0.15 −408.6 −13.2 −0.73 −992 −266 27 78 −35.2 −1.96 12.6
T50 S+ 3.2 0.18 515.0 11.9 0.66 1,008 332 33 97 38.4 2.13 12.0
N− −2.9 −0.16 −338.0 −20.0 −1.11 −895 −247 28 72 −42.9 −2.38 14.8

the loading apparatus and test results were almost identical in both
directions. In comparison, V sm in the positive direction (S+) ranged
from 299 to 339 kN, while V sm in the negative direction (N−)
ranged from 236 to 269 kN. In addition, the proportion of
V sm =V sACI ranged from 72% to 99%, showing the code-specified
shear capacity was unsafe for the tension-shear specimens. The ra-
tio of V sm =V test ranged from 20% to 33%, indicating the tie action
was limited in the test and the load was carried primarily through
direct strut action. This result was coincident with the test obser-
vation of shear compression failure. In addition, Mo (1988) also
investigated the dynamic behavior of low-aspect-ratio RC shear
walls and concluded that the negative deformation under reversed
loading was approximately 1.5 times that of positive shear, which
was consistent with the difference of shear capacity in this research.
The shear capacity in the tension-shear specimens decreased al-
most linearly with increasing axial tension force. When the axial
tension force increased from 0 to 1,293 kN, the shear capacity V s
decreased from 1,507 to 895 kN because the applied tension force
reduced the capacity of the direct strut action. The existing tension-
shear test on RC shear walls also showed the axial tension force
reduced the shear capacity of RC shear walls with a factor ranging
from 0.35 (Ji et al. 2018; Lai 2015) to 0.21 (Ren 2018). Contrarily,
existing research showed the axial compression force enhanced
the shear capacity of RC shear walls, and the current ACI 318

© ASCE 04020047-9 J. Struct. Eng.

J. Struct. Eng., 2020, 146(5): 04020047

 (ACI 2014) code adopts a factor ranging from 0.2 to 0.25 to
consider the positive influence of axial compression force on shear
capacity.
In addition, the ductility increased with respect to axial ten-
sion force. The ultimate drift ratio θu increased from 0.90% to
2.38% when the axial tension force increased from 0 to 1,293 kN,
indicating the applied tension force postponed crushing of the con-
crete strut. In comparison, Ji et al. (2018) reported the ultimate drift
ratio θu increased from 1.5% to 3.4% when the axial tension ratio
increased from 0 to 0.8. Lai (2015) reported the ultimate drift ratio
was not influenced by varying axial tension. Ren (2018) reported
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as follows: The shear compression failure was observed for each
specimen; therefore, the external energy was primarily consumed
by crushing of concrete through direct strut action. As shown in
Fig. 6, the region of crushed concrete was almost the same for T30,
T40, and T50. Therefore, increasing the axial tension ratio from 0.3
to 0.5 had minor influence on the energy consumption E and damp-
ing coefficient he . As reported by Zhu (2015), for shear-critical RC
shear walls, the axial tension force T showed insignificant influence
on he , and the he decreased with respect to the axial reinforcement
ratio. As reported by Zhang (2007), for shear-critical RC shear
walls, when the axial compression ratio of RC shear walls increased

the ultimate drift ratio increased with respect to the axial tension
ratio for the tension-shear failure mode. In seismic design of
high-rise building structures, however, the bottom shear walls were
generally subjected to hysteretic tension and compression load.
Although the tension force increased the ductility in this test, the
axial compression force significantly reduces ductility of RC shear
walls. Therefore, the test observed that high ductility under fixed
axial tension force was unreliable in seismic design and could not
be directly used in a ductility design method.
Damping Coefficient
As shown in Fig. 10, the accumulated energy consumption (de-
noted as E) and equivalent damping coefficient (denoted as he )
are calculated as per the Chinese standard (CMC 2015a). The ac-
cumulated energy consumption was obtained by calculating the
area enclosed in the hysteresis loops, while he was calculated by
subdividing E=2π by the elastic strain energy of the assumed elas-
tic system with the same displacement level. T00 exhibited an
enhanced energy consumption ability compared with other speci-
mens, and T30, T40, and T50 had relatively lower energy con-
sumption and an equivalent damping coefficient. For each
displacement level, the second cycle had lower ductility than the
first cycle. The he of T00 ranged from 7% to 37%, and he of the
tension-shear specimens ranged from 7% to 17% after yielding.
The reasons the axial tension load had insignificant influence on
the damping coefficient in the test program may be concluded
from 0.214 to 0.857, the average value of he in the loading history
increased from 10.6% to 14.3%. The comparison showed that the
influence of axial force on the hysteretic damping effect of RC
shear wall was insignificant.
Stiffness Degradation
The lateral secant stiffness K is calculated as per the Chinese
code (CMC 2015a) as follows and plotted in Fig. 11:
j þ Fi j þ j − Fi j
K¼ ð6Þ
j þ Xi j þ j − Xi j
where þFi and −Fi denote the positive and negative peak load at
the ith hysteretic loop, respectively; and þX i and −X i denote the
positive and negative maximum displacement reached in the ith
hysteretic loop, respectively.
As shown in Fig. 11, the lateral stiffness rapidly decreased with
respect to axial tension force. When the axial load was increased
from 0 to 1,293 kN, the initial lateral stiffness decreased from 853
to 312 kN=mm. The significant influence of axial force on the
initial lateral stiffness has been reported by tension-shear tests (Lai
2015; Ren 2018; Ji et al. 2018) and compression-shear tests (Li and
Li 2004; Zhang 2007; Tran 2012) on RC shear walls. This behavior
was attributed to the reason the axial tension force induced initial
cracking and stiffness degradation, while axial compression force
delayed cracking and enhanced the initial stiffness. At peak load
(lateral drift of 0.66%–1.22%), the lateral stiffness of tension-shear

/H /H
0 0.5% 1% 1.5% 2% 2.5% 0 0.5% 1% 1.5% 2% 2.5%
250 45%
T00
40% T30
200 T40
35% T50

150 30%
E/kJ

he

25%

100
20%
T00
T30 15%
50 T40
T50 10%

0 5%
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
(a) /mm (b) /mm

Fig. 10. Energy consumption and damping coefficient of each specimen in the loading history: (a) accumulated energy consumption; and
(b) equivalent damping coefficient.

© ASCE 04020047-10 J. Struct. Eng.

J. Struct. Eng., 2020, 146(5): 04020047

 /H
degradation ratios of T30, T40, and T50 were very similar in the
0 0.5% 1% 1.5% 2% 2.5%
900 loading history, while T00 showed a lower strength degradation
ratio at lateral displacement ranging from 15 to 25 mm. After
800 reaching the peak load, the strength degradation ratio ranged from
T00 0.68 to 0.90 for each specimen. The observed cyclic degradation
700
T30 effect is attributed to the strength degradation due to principal ten-
T40 sile strain (Aoyagi and Yamada 1983; Vecchio and Collins 1986;
600
T50
Belarbi and Hsu 1995; Zhang 1995). Existing tests showed that the
K/ kN/mm

500 compressive strength of concrete is notably reduced by principal

tensile strain (Maekawa et al. 2003). In this research, the test
400
observation also showed the crack width of the shear wall in the
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300
second cycle of a certain lateral drift was notably higher than the
first cycle. Therefore, when the same displacement level was
200 reached in the positive direction, the restoring force was generally
lower than the first cycle due to cracking and damage of the con-
100 crete. The observed degradation ratio was notably lower than the
0
test results reported in the traditional compression-shear test on RC
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 shear walls.
/mm

Fig. 11. Lateral stiffness degradation of tension-bending test specimens. Strains

specimens ranged from 63 to 99 kN=mm, and the axial tension
ratio had a minor influence on lateral stiffness at peak load. After
reaching the lateral drift of 20 mm, the axial tension ratio had
negligible influence on lateral stiffness K.
Strength Degradation
The test program showed a significant cyclic degradation effect of
RC shear walls under tension-bending-shear load, which was also
observed in both the experimental study and the numerical simu-
lation of shear-critical RC shear walls under compression-bending-
shear load (Maekawa et al. 2003). In order to investigate the cyclic
degradation behavior, the strength degradation ratio η is calculated
as per Chinese standard (CMC 2015a) by subdividing the test
peak capacity of second loop by the capacity of the first loop in
each displacement level, which is plotted in Fig. 12. The strength
/H
0 0.5% 1% 1.5% 2%
1.3
The strain result of vertical distributed rebar located at the center
of the shear wall is shown in Figs. 13(a–d). The strain results
showed the vertical distributed rebar at the center of the shear
wall was under tension throughout the loading history. This was
coincident with the test observation that the bottom of the wall
web did not crush in the test. The axial tension strain increased
significantly with respect to the axial tension ratio. As for T00, the
axial tensile strain of the vertical distributed rebar was less than
2,500 με. For other specimens, however, the axial tensile strain
rapidly exceeded yield strain after reaching the ultimate capacity.
Figs. 13(a–d) show that the vertical distributed rebar at the center
of the shear wall developed its yield strength in each specimen.
The strain result of the column vertical rebar at the south end of
the boundary element is shown in Figs. 13(e–h). The strain meas-
urement result showed that the axial tensile strain of the T30 and
T40 specimens had a sudden increase after reaching the peak load.
The compression yielding was generally not observed in T30,
T40, and T50. Contrarily, in traditional compression-bending-
shear tests of shear-critical RC shear walls, the compression yield-
ing of longitudinal rebar was mostly observed in the boundary
element because both the axial compression force and the direct
strut action will cause significant axial compression strain in the
boundary element.
2.5% 3%

Crack Width
1.2
T00
T30
Fig. 14 shows the maximum crack width measured by visual in-
1.1 T40 spection at the peak load of the first cycle at each displacement
T50 level. The flexural crack was horizontal and distributed at the bot-
tom of the shear wall. In comparison, the shear cracks generally
1
developed diagonally and were distributed throughout the shear
wall. As shown in Fig. 14, before reaching the designed axial ten-
0.9 sion force, the maximum crack width was less than 0.2 mm. After
the axial tension force was fully applied, the flexural crack width
0.8 and shear crack width grew significantly with increasing lateral
drift. As for T00, the flexural crack width was notably lower than
0.7 the shear crack width. For other specimens, however, the difference
between flexural crack width and shear crack width was insignifi-
0.6
cant. At the lateral drift ratio of 1.2%, the shear crack width ranged
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 from 1.5 to 3.5 mm in tension-shear specimens. In addition, a de-
/mm tailed investigation of the crack width development is reported by
Wang (2019) based on the average crack spacing model proposed
Fig. 12. Strength degradation ratio of tension-bending test specimens.
by Wang et al. (2017).

© ASCE 04020047-11 J. Struct. Eng.

J. Struct. Eng., 2020, 146(5): 04020047

 1500 1500 1500 1000

1000 1000 1000

500
500 500
500
F/kN

F/kN

F/kN

F/kN
0 0 0
0
-500 -500
-500
-1000 -1000 -500

-1500 -1500 -1000 -1000

-0.05% 0 0.05% 0.1% 0.15%0.2% 0.25% -0.2% 0 0.2% 0.4% 0.6% 0.8%1% 0 0.5% 1% 1.5% 2% -0.5% 0 0.5% 1% 1.5% 2% 2.5%
(a) (b) (c) (d)
2000 1500 1500 1500
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1000 1000 1000

1000
500
500 500
F/kN

F/kN

F/kN

F/kN
0 0
0 0
-500
-1000
-1000 -500 -500

-2000 -1500 -1000 -1000

-0.4% -0.2% 0 0.2% 0.4% -0.2% 0 0.2% 0.4% 0.6% 0.8% -0.1% 0 0.1% 0.2% 0.3% -0.4%-0.2% 0 0.2% 0.4% 0.6% 0.8%
(e) (f) (g) (h)

Fig. 13. Strain of longitudinal rebar at bottom of shear wall: (a) T00 middle; (b) T30 middle; (c) T40 middle; (d) T50 middle; (e) T00 side;
(f) T30 side; (g) T40 side; and (h) T50 side.

H t H
0 0.1% 0.2% 0.3% 0.4% 0.5% 0.6% 0.075 0.15 0.225 0.3 0.2% 0.4% 0.6% 0.8% 1% 1.2%
1.5 2.5
Flexural crack width Flexural crack width
Shear crack width Shear crack width
2

1
1.5
w max/mm

w max/mm

1
0.5

0.5

0 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 0.075 0.15 0.225 0.3 5 10 15 20 25
/mm t /mm
(a) (b) Phase 1: Increasing Axial Force Phase 2: Hysteric loading

t H t H
0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5% 1% 1.5% 0.125 0.25 0.375 0.5 0.2% 0.4% 0.6% 0.8% 1% 1.2%
3.5 1.5
Flexural crack width Flexural crack width
3 Shear crack width Shear crack width

2.5
1
w max/mm

w max/mm

1.5
0.5
1

0.5

0 0
0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 5 10 15 20 25 30 0.125 0.25 0.375 0.5 5 10 15 20 25
t /mm t /mm
(c) Phase 1: Increasing Axial Force Phase 2: Hysteric loading (d) Phase 1: Increasing Axial Force Phase 2: Hysteric loading

Fig. 14. Maximum crack width measured at peak load of cycles: (a) T00; (b) T30; (c) T40; and (d) T50.

© ASCE 04020047-12 J. Struct. Eng.

J. Struct. Eng., 2020, 146(5): 04020047

 Database and Design Method failure was characterized by significant sliding deformation
along the interface between the RC shear wall and the founda-
Database of RC Shear Walls under tion beam, and the sliding capacity was generally contributed by
Tension-Bending-Shear Cyclic Load the vertical rebar and anchorage rebar at the interface between
the shear wall and the foundation (Paulay et al. 1982). There-
After the collapse of the Alto Rio apartment in the 2010 Chile fore, the sliding failure has to be excluded from the database.
Maule earthquake, experimental and numerical studies have been • Specimen CSW5 reported by Lai (2015) added inclined rebar
devoted to investigating the seismic behavior of RC shear walls and and notably enhanced the shear capacity. Therefore, CSW5
composite shear walls under tension-bending-shear load (Lai 2015; had to be excluded from the database.
Yao 2015; Ji et al. 2018; Zhu 2015; Wang et al. 2018a). However, After checking these two requirements, a total of 15 RC shear
there is a dearth of test databases for predicting the shear capacity of walls remained in the database. The basic information of test spec-
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RC shear walls. In response to the urgent requirement of a design imens in the database is as given in Table 4. For each shear wall
method, a database was developed to include an experimental study specimen, the shear capacity obtained from both the positive load-
on shear-critical RC shear walls under tension-bending-shear load, ing direction and negative loading direction were included in the
including this research and previous literature (Lai 2015; Ji et al. database to ensure safety.
2018; Zhu 2015). A total of 24 RC shear walls were reported by The shear capacity V test of the developed test database is plot-
previous literature and four RC shear walls are reported in this ted in Fig. 15(a), and the shear strength of concrete (formulated
research. The following two requirements are checked for the as V test − V sACI ) is plotted in Fig. 15(b). The test results of each
database: specimen in the positive and negative directions were plotted. As
• The sliding failure was reported by Ji et al. (2018) and Zhu shown in Fig. 15(a), the test results of each literature exhibited a
(2015) for specimens with large axial tension ratios. The sliding linear relationship between shear capacity and tension load. This is

Table 4. Test matrix of developed tension-shear database

V test (kN)
Failure f yh Ash s T fcu bw hw V CMC V ACI
Specimen mode (MPa) (mm2 ) (mm) (kN) Λ (MPa) (mm) (mm) (kN) (kN) + −
T00 SC 402 56.5 100 0 1.1 62.2 150 1,700 793 717 1,507 1,353
T30 SC 402 56.5 100 776 1.1 62.2 150 1,700 692 574 1,154 1,100
T40 SC 402 56.5 100 1,034 1.1 62.2 150 1,700 659 526 1,105 992
T50 SC 402 56.5 100 1,293 1.1 62.2 150 1,700 625 478 1,008 895
SW1 (Ji et al. 2018) ST 397.9 100.5 150 617 1.1 62.9 180 1,500 754 626 960 908
SW2 (Ji et al. 2018) ST 397.9 100.5 150 1,030 1.1 63.4 180 1,500 702 552 823 812
SW3 (Ji et al. 2018) ST 397.9 100.5 150 1,716 1.1 63.6 180 1,500 614 429 568 567
SW6 (Ji et al. 2018) ST 480 100.5 150 0 1.1 55.4 180 1,500 877 789 1,173 1,276
SW-1 (Lai 2015) ST 661.7 56.5 100 0 1 46.93 120 900 471 456 603 585
SW-2 (Lai, 2015) ST 661.7 56.5 100 176 1 46.93 120 900 448 424 523 543
SW-3 (Lai 2015) ST 661.7 56.5 100 380 1 46.93 120 900 422 387 431 438
SW-4 (Lai 2015) ST 661.7 56.5 100 578 1 46.93 120 900 396 350 428 450
RCW17T100 (Ren 2018) SC 392.4 56.5 120 163 1.5 83.8 120 800 343 249 225 225.8
RCW17T150 (Ren 2018) SC 392.4 56.5 120 244 1.5 77 120 800 323 228 185 200
RCW25T000 (Ren 2018) SC 392.4 56.5 120 0 1.5 63.4 120 800 334 264 343 298
Note: ST = shear tension failure; and SC = shear compression failure.

1.8 1.4
This study This study
1.6 Ji et al. (2018) Ji et al. (2018)
1.2
Lai (2015) Lai (2015)
1.4
Zhu (2015) Zhu (2015)
1
(Vtest– VsACI)/f t bw h w0

1.2
Vtest /f t bw hw0

1 0.8

0.8 0.6

0.6
0.4
0.4
0.2
0.2

0 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
(a) T/f t bw hw0 (b) T/f t bw hw0

Fig. 15. Measured shear strength versus axial tension force: (a) shear capacity; and (b) shear contribution of concrete.

© ASCE 04020047-13 J. Struct. Eng.

J. Struct. Eng., 2020, 146(5): 04020047

  pffiffiffiffiffi  pffiffiffiffiffi 
attributed to the reason the test programs were mostly designed 1 0.2T
with fixed geometric and material parameters and varying axial V 2 ¼ 0.05 fc0 þ 0.1 f c0 − bw hw0
λ − 0.5 hw bw
tension force. In comparison, the test results between different re-
Ash
searchers (Lai 2015; Ji et al. 2018; Zhu 2015) varied a lot in terms þ fyh h ð9Þ
of ultimate capacity because the aspect ratio and reinforcement s w0
ratio varied significantly between different researchers. In the fol-
lowing discussion, a simplified design formula will be proposed hw0 ≥ 0.8hw ðACI 2014Þ ð10Þ
addressing the influence of aspect ratio, reinforcement ratio, and    
axial tension ratio. Ash pffiffiffiffiffi
V ACI ¼ min max minðV 1 ; V 2 Þ; f yh 0
h ; 0.83 f c bw hw0
s w0
Simplified Design Formula for Shear Strength ð11Þ
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In this section, the design equations for shear strength are first eval- where V CMC = shear capacity of the Chinese code (CMC 2010b);
uated by the developed database. The shear capacity of RC shear V ACI ¼ ACI code-specified capacity (ACI 2014); β c = coefficient
walls with axial tension force was recommended by ACI 318 (ACI for concrete strength, which is set to 1.0 for C50 and 0.8 for C80
2014) and JGJ 3 (CMC 2010b) as follows: concrete; f c = concrete strength as per the Chinese code (CMC
2010b); V 1 and V 2 = two derived quantities; λ = shear span to depth
 
1 ratio; T = axial tension force; f t = tensile strength of concrete; bw =
V CMC ¼ min max ð0.7ft bw hw0 − 0.13TÞ wall thickness; hw0 = effective depth of the shear wall; hw = length
maxðλ; 1.5Þ − 0.5
  of the shear wall; fyh = yield strength of horizontal distributed re-
f yh Ash hw0 f yh Ash hw0
þ ; ; 0.25β c fc bw hw0 ð7Þ bar; s = horizontal rebar spacing; and Ash = horizontal rebar area.
s s The test measured shear capacity V test is plotted against
the code-specified capacity as shown in Figs. 16(a–b). First, the
Chinese code (CMC 2010b) spuriously overestimated the shear
pffiffiffiffiffi h A capacity of six specimens tested by Ji et al. (2018), Lai (2015),
V 1 ¼ 0.27 fc0 bw hw0 − 0.25T w0 þ f yh sh hw0 ð8Þ
hw s and Zhu (2015). Second, although ACI 318 (2014) predicted

900 800

800 700

700
600
600
500
VCMC /kN

VACI /kN

500
400
400
This study
300 This study
300 Ji et al. (2018)
Ji et al. (2018)
Lai (2015)
Lai (2015)
Zhu (2015) 200
200 Zhu (2015)
V JGJ =V test
V ACI =V test
100 V JGJ =0.85V test 100
V ACI =0.85Vtest

0 0
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600
(a) Vtest /kN (b) Vtest /kN

1400

1200

1000

800
V pre /kN

600
This study
Ji et al. (2018)
400
Lai (2015)
Zhu (2015)
200 V pre =V test
V pre =0.85Vtest
0
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800
(c) Vtest /kN

Fig. 16. Measured and calculated shear strength of test database: (a) JGJ 3; (b) ACI 318; and (c) proposed equation.

© ASCE 04020047-14 J. Struct. Eng.

J. Struct. Eng., 2020, 146(5): 04020047

 relatively conservative shear capacity, the shear capacity was
underestimated. In addition, Ji et al. (2018) also reported that both
the ACI code (ACI 2014) and Chinese code (CMC 2010b) under-
estimated the influence of axial tension force, which was unfavor-
able for very large axial tension ratios.
Because of the aforementioned reasons, a simplified design for-
mula for shear capacity of RC shear walls under tension-bending-
shear combined load is proposed based on the developed test
database as follows:
 
0.508
V pre ¼ max − 0.266; 0 fyl Al
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design formula was proposed with adequate safety concerns and
accuracy.
The aforementioned conclusions are limited to RC shear walls
with fixed axial tension force, and the hysteretic axial tension
and compression load may affect the mechanical behavior of RC
shear walls.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support pro-

λ vided by the Thirteenth Five-Year plan major projects supported

by the National Key Research Program of China (Grant Number
A
þ maxð0.473 − 0.100λ; 0Þft bw hw0 þ 0.7f yh sh hw0 2018YFC0705704) and the Key Research Program of China
s
  Railway Corp (Grant Number K2018G018).
f t bw hw0
− 0.113 þ 0.501 T ð12Þ
f yl Al
Notation
where V pre = predicted shear capacity; λ = shear span to depth ratio;
f yl and Al = yield strength and area of vertical rebar; T = axial The following symbols are used in this paper:
tension force; ft = tensile strength of concrete; bw = wall thickness; Ac = area of concrete;
hw0 = effective depth of shear wall; f yh = yield strength of hori- Ash = area of horizontal distributed rebar;
zontal distributed rebar; s = horizontal rebar spacing; and Ash = Al = area of vertical rebar;
horizontal rebar area. E = accumulated energy consumption;
The following three features are observed in Eq. (12). First, the Ec = elastic modulus of concrete;
proposed formula includes the dowel action of vertical rebar, which Es = elastic modulus of reinforcement bar;
was not included in ACI (ACI 2014) and the Chinese code (CMC f cu = concrete compressive strength of 150-mm standard cube;
2010b). Second, the strain measurement result showed that the
fc0 = cylinder strength of concrete;
code-specified V sACI and the ratio between measured and code-
fu = ultimate strength;
specified shear strength of rebar (V sm =V sACI ) ranged from 72%
to 99%. Therefore, the developed Eq. (12) includes a safety coef- fy = yield strength;
ficient of 0.7 to account for this effect. Finally, the influence factor f yh = yield strength of horizontal distributed rebar;
of axial tension force was related to material strength and steel fyl = yield strength of vertical rebar;
reinforcement ratio. Fig. 16(c) shows a comparison between test H = wall height;
capacity and a proposed design formula according to Eq. (12). he = equivalent damping ratio;
As shown in Fig. 16(c), the satisfactory prediction of the test results hw = length of shear wall;
was observed and the standard deviation of V pre =V test was merely hw0 = effective depth of shear wall;
7.5%. Therefore, Eq. (12) was developed with adequate accuracy K = lateral secant stiffness;
for engineering design. s = spacing of horizontal distributed rebar;
T = axial tension force;
t = axial tension ratio;
Conclusions V = total shear force;
This paper presents test results of four RC shear walls under V ACI = ACI code-specified shear capacity (ACI 2014);
tension-bending-shear hysteretic load. The following conclusions V CMC = Chinese code-specified shear capacity (CMC 2010b);
are drawn: V ls ðiÞ = axial force of horizontal rebar at diagonal from bottom
• In tension-bending-shear tests, shear compression failure mode right to top left side;
was observed for each specimen, characterized by formation of V pre = predicted shear capacity;
inclined crack and direct strut action. V rs ðiÞ = axial force of horizontal rebar at diagonal from bottom
• When the axial tension force increased from 0 to 1,293 kN, left to top right side;
the ultimate drift ratio θu increased from 0.90% to 2.38%, while V s = shear force contribution of horizontal distributed rebar;
shear capacity V test decreased from 1,507 to 895 kN. The V sm = maximum shear force contribution of horizontal
load–displacement curve showed significant pinching effect distributed rebar;
and strength degradation effect. V sACI = shear strength of horizontal distributed rebar as per
• An innovative measuring method was designed to obtain V s ACI (2014);
in shear wall specimens. The ratio of V sm =V test ranged from V test = shear capacity;
20% to 33%, indicating the tie action was limited in the test
Δ = lateral displacement;
and the load was primarily carried through direct strut action.
Δmax = displacement corresponding to the ultimate capacity;
The ratio of V sm =V sACI ranged from 72% to 99%, showing the
code-specified shear capacity V sACI was not reached for the Δs = shear displacement;
tension-bending-shear specimens. Δu = ultimate displacement when the capacity drops by 15%;
• A database of RC shear walls under tension-bending-shear Δy = yield displacement;
load was established. The Chinese code was found to predict εsh = strain at initial hardening;
spuriously higher tension-shear capacity. Finally, a simplified εu = ultimate strain;

© ASCE 04020047-15 J. Struct. Eng.

J. Struct. Eng., 2020, 146(5): 04020047

 η = strength degradation ratio;
θu = ultimate drift ratio;
θy = yield drift ratio;
λ = shear span to depth ratio;
μ = ductility ratio;
σN = average tensile stress of concrete; and
ωmax = maximum crack width.
Supplemental Data
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by Indian Institute of Technology, Madras on 10/05/22. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
The load versus total displacement curves of all specimens as
shown in Figs. 7 and 8 are available online in the ASCE Library
(www.ascelibrary.org).
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