Structures 23 (2020) 56–68

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Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/structures

Comparative study on shear failure behavior of squat high-strength steel T

reinforced concrete shear walls with various high-strength concrete
materials
Chung-Chan Hung , Ping-Lun Hsieh
⁎

Department of Civil Engineering, National Cheng Kung University. 1, University Rd, Tainan City 701, Taiwan

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: The shear failure behavior of four squat shear walls with high-strength steel (HSS) and high-strength concrete
High-strength reinforcement (HSC) was experimentally investigated in this study. The experimental variables are the steel grade, namely
High-strength concrete SD420 and SD785, and the type of HSC materials, namely commercially available HSC with the inclusion of steel
Squat shear walls fibers and ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) with or without steel fibers. The squat walls were tested
UHPC
under displacement reversals and their cyclic responses were extensively compared using various performance
Fibers
Strut-and-tie model
measures. The results indicate that the addition of steel fibers in the squat walls transformed the shear critical
damage pattern from significant concrete spalling to localized diagonal cracks. The HSS reinforced squat wall
made using commercially available HSC with the addition of a 0.75% volume fraction of steel fibers had a load-
displacement response, energy dissipation capacity, and shear strength comparable to those of the squat walls
made using specially mixed UHPC containing a 1.5% volume fraction of steel fibers. Moreover, while the high-
strength horizontal reinforcement in the squat non-fiber HSC did not yield until the end of the test, its yield
strength was fully utilized when it was used in the fiber-reinforced HSC walls. In addition to the experimental
study, the applicability of existing design codes and the softened strut-and-tie model for assessing the shear
strength of the high-strength squat walls was evaluated.

1. Introduction
Reinforced concrete (RC) structural walls are efficient lateral load
resisting members [1]. They are often used in building structures to
control structural responses to seismic action. The aspect ratio of RC
structural walls, i.e., the height-to-length ratio, is one of the critical
design parameters that govern the behavior of the walls. Structural
walls with an aspect ratio of less than 1.5, often termed squat walls,
exhibit shear-critical behavior under lateral loads. Their typical failure
modes include diagonal tensile and compressive failure, web crushing,
and sliding failure [2,3]. These shear-dominant damage patterns cause
squat RC walls to show rapidly decayed stiffness and strength as well as
a pinching load-displacement hysteretic response when under dis-
placement reversals, which significantly limit the energy dissipation
capacity and ductility of the walls [3,4]. To stably withstand a large
portion of the lateral shear acting on the entire structural system in
earthquake events, squat RC walls are required to be detailed with
sufficient horizontal reinforcement [4–7].
The use of high-strength concrete (HSC) and high-strength steel
(HSS) reinforcement in structural walls reduces the wall cross sectional
dimensions and the amount of steel reinforcement required in the walls.
However, HSC is more brittle than its normal-strength counterpart,
causing HSC structural walls to be more vulnerable to spalling and less
ductile under seismic loads [8]. The brittleness of HSC might even re-
sult in premature wall failure before the wall reaches its targeted
seismic performance [8]. It is worth mentioning that ACI 318 [9] re-
quires that the specified yield strength of steel in the design of shear
reinforcement (except for welded deformed wire reinforcement) for
structural walls to not exceed 420 MPa to limit the width of possible
shear cracks to acceptable levels. Although this restriction does not
prevent higher-strength bars from being used as horizontal reinforce-
ment, it implies that a higher yield strength may not be used for the
calculation of shear strength.
Ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) is an advanced cementi-
tious composite that has an ultra-high compressive strength due to its
high particle packing density. When it is reinforced with discontinuous
steel fibers (typically with a volume fraction of 0.75%–2.5%), the
composite can show tensile strain-hardening behavior with multiple

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: cchung@mail.ncku.edu.tw (C.-C. Hung).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.istruc.2019.11.002
Received 29 August 2019; Received in revised form 31 October 2019; Accepted 1 November 2019
Available online 25 November 2019
2352-0124/ © 2019 Institution of Structural Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
C.-C. Hung and P.-L. Hsieh
hairline cracks prior to crack localization, and therefore it can be ca-
tegorized as a type of high performance fiber reinforced cement com-
posites [10]. It has been shown that fiber-reinforced UHPC has superior
ductility and can absorb a large amount of deformation energy before
the main crack is generated (e.g., [11–14]). The addition of steel fibers
in UHPC also significantly enhances the shear strength and confinement
of the UHPC [15,16]. The amount of confinement steel and shear re-
inforcement in conventional RC structural members can thus be po-
tentially reduced by replacing the concrete material with fiber-re-
inforced UHPC. In addition to its advantageous mechanical properties,
fiber-reinforced UHPC has significantly higher durability compared to
that of conventional concrete materials due to its crack-width control
and extremely low porosity.
The application of UHPC in civil infrastructure and earthquake-re-
sistant structures has rapidly increased in recent years [10–26]. Aghdasi
et al. [27] developed a UHPC material using commercially available
constituent materials without special materials or treatments. The ex-
perimental studies conducted by Hung et al. [28] showed that the
tension-stiffening effect had a significant influence on the tensile
properties of steel-reinforced UHPC. Abediniangerabi et al. [29] in-
vestigated the combined effect of building type and climate conditions
on the energy performance of UHPC panels. The results indicated that
the UHPC panel assembly provided higher thermal resistance compared
with that of the conventional panel assembly. Tazarv and Saiidi [30]
experimentally investigated the seismic performance of a half-scale
precast reinforced concrete bridge column connected to a footing with a
UHPC-filled duct connection. It was shown that the performance of the
UHPC-filled duct connection is comparable to that of conventional
connections. Hung et al. [8] investigated the cyclic behavior of squat
HSS-reinforced UHPC walls that were proportioned to show a flexurally
controlled strength. It was found that the replacement of HSC by fiber-
reinforced UHPC in squat walls transformed the cyclic response of the
squat walls from shear-critical into flexural-critical behavior, leading to
a significantly enhanced energy dissipation capacity of the wall.
The present study extends the work of Hung et al. [8] by in-
vestigating the critical shear strength and failure behavior of four squat
HSS-reinforced shear walls made with different types of HSC materials,
including commercially available HSC with the inclusion of steel fibers,
non-fiber UHPC, and fiber-reinforced UHPC. The effects of HSC mate-
rial type on the cyclic behavior of the squat walls are experimentally
investigated. In addition to the experimental study, the applicability of
existing design codes and the softened strut-and-tie model for evalu-
ating the shear strength of the squat HSC walls reinforced with HSS is
evaluated.
2. Materials
Four squat shear walls were cast using three different types of HSC
materials, whose mix proportions are summarized in Table 1. They
were reinforced with deformed steel bars of different grades. Details of
the materials are given below.
2.1. Concrete
One of the squat shear walls was made using HSC with the addition
of a 0.75% volume fraction of short steel fibers, denoted as HSC/75.
The HSC/75 material was prepared by adding hooked steel fibers into
Table 1
Mixture proportions of concrete materials (proportion by weight except for fibers).
Mix Cement Pozzolan Coarse aggregate
HSC/75 1 0.72 2.23
UHPC/0 1 0.4 0 1.19
UHPC/150 1 0.4 0 1.19
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Structures 23 (2020) 56–68
commercially available HSC. The 0.75% volume fraction of fibers was
determined as the maximum allowable fiber content for the fresh HSC
to have acceptable workability and uniform fiber distribution based on
preliminary material tests.
The other three squat walls were made using UHPC materials
without hooked steel fibers and with a 1.5% volume fraction of hooked
steel fibers, denoted as UHPC/0 and UHPC/150, respectively. The
composition of the UHPC material included Type I ordinary Portland
cement, silica fume, quartz powder, silica sand (with particle sizes
ranging from 0.1 to 0.3 mm), polycarboxylate-based superplasticizer,
and water. The UHPC materials were mixed and prepared in a com-
mercial concrete batching plant with a mixer capacity of 5 m3. They
were transported to the construction site via concrete trucks. To allow
the UHPC/150 material to have suitable workability for pumping after
30 min of transportation, its water content was slightly increased to be
about 10% higher than that of UHPC/0 at the cost of reduced com-
pressive strength. The hooked steel fibers had a length of 30 mm and a
diameter of 0.38 mm. The nominal yield strength and elastic modulus
of the steel fibers were 3070 MPa and 201 GPa, respectively.
2.2. Steel rebar
SD420 and SD785 deformed steel bars were used in this study. Their
tensile properties obtained using direct tensile tests are summarized in
Table 2. All reinforcing bars had a ratio of ultimate strength to yield
strength of greater than 1.25. In addition, their elongations were more
than 10% prior to fracture.
3. Wall specimens
The four squat shear wall specimens had identical dimensions, with
the geometries shown in Fig. 1(a). Each specimen consisted of a wall
element connected to RC blocks at both ends. The wall element was
1500 mm in length, 160 mm in thickness, and 1100 mm in height. The
aspect ratio of the wall element was 0.73. The experimental variables of
the wall elements included the type of the concrete material (HSC/75,
UHPC/0, and UHPC/150) and the grade of the steel reinforcement
(SD420 or SD785).
Each specimen is denoted according to its concrete type (HSC/75,
UHPC/150, and UHPC/0) and grade of reinforcement (NS and HS,
which represent SD420 and SD785, respectively). For example, UHPC/
150-HS refers to the wall specimen made using UHPC containing a
1.5% volume fraction of fibers and reinforced with SD785 steel bars.
The reinforcement designs of the squat walls are summarized in
Table 3 and illustrated using UHPC/0-HS in Fig. 1(b). The web regions
of all the wall elements were reinforced by 8#4(D13) in both horizontal
and vertical directions. To study the influence of reinforcement grade
on the shear-critical behavior of the squat walls, the UHPC/150-NS
specimen was reinforced with SD420 steel and the other wall specimens
were reinforced with SD785 steel. All the walls were reinforced with
dowel bars to restrain the potential sliding mechanism often observed
to control the failure mode of squat RC shear walls [7,8]. The boundary
elements in each squat wall were longitudinally reinforced with
6#10(D32) steel bars. The spacing of the confinement steel in the
UHPC/0-HS specimen was 50 mm whereas that in the other three walls
reinforced with steel fibers was increased to 80 mm because of the
additional confinement effect provided by the fibers.
Fine aggregate Water and superplasticizer Fiber (by volume)
2.35 0.51 0.75%
0.34 0%
0.38 1.5%
C.-C. Hung and P.-L. Hsieh
Table 2
Tensile properties of steel reinforcing bars.
Grade (MPa) Size Yield strength (MPa)
SD420 #3 (D10) 455.0
#4 (D13) 487.9
#5 (D16) 438.5
#10 (D32) 542.5
SD785 #4 (D13) 825.3
To investigate the shear-critical behavior of the walls under dis-
placement reversals, all squat walls were proportioned to fail in shear
before their nominal flexural strength was reached. The nominal flex-
ural and shear strengths of the walls were computed following ACI 318-
19 [9] without imposing the upper limit on the yield strength of the
steel reinforcement. When computing the nominal flexural strength of
the walls, the contribution of the dowel bars was accounted for. The
enhancement in shear strength due to the addition of steel fibers was
not considered in the design due to the lack of conclusive quantitative
recommendations in existing studies. To ensure that this simplification
in the design did not adversely affect the intended shear failure pattern
of the walls, the value of Vmn/ Vn for each wall was designed to be suf-
ficiently greater than 1, ranging from 1.4 to 1.9, where Vmn = Mn/ h w is
the wall’s shear demand at the nominal flexural strength, h w is the
height from the wall base to the center line of the horizontal load ap-
plied by the hydraulic actuators (i.e., wall shear span), and Mn and Vn
are the nominal flexural and shear strengths of the wall, respectively.
Although it was difficult to consider the quantitative effects of steel
fibers on the nominal flexural and shear strengths in the design of the
walls, the effects are discussed later based on the experimental results.
4. Test instrumentation and load protocol
4.1. Material tests
Four material samples from each batch of the concrete materials
were prepared for each mechanical test. They were tested one day be-
fore or after testing the corresponding squat wall specimen to obtain the
mechanical properties of the concrete materials. The average result of
the four samples was employed as the representative material proper-
ties.
The compressive strength of the concrete materials was evaluated
according to ASTM C39 using standard cylinders with dimensions of
75 mm × 150 mm. The tensile properties of the UHPC materials were
identified via uniaxial tensile tests on UHPC dog-bone-shaped speci-
mens. Fig. 2 shows the configuration, dimensions, and test setup of the
dog-bone-shaped specimen. The magnitude of the applied force was
Fig. 1. Design details of test specimens (units: mm).
Structures 23 (2020) 56–68
Ultimate strength (MPa) Yield strain (mm/mm) Elongation (%)
677.0 0.0021 20.4
686.7 0.0025 10.1
630.1 0.0022 12.5
740.2 0.0025 16.7
1053.9 0.0039 10.6
measured via a load cell directly linked to the actuator. During the
tensile tests, the elongation of a 160-mm-long gauged region in the
samples was monitored using an NDI Optotrak® Certus HD system with
two light sensors attached to the two ends of the region. Both the
compressive and tensile tests were carried out using a displacement
control procedure with a loading rate of 0.5 mm/min to simulate a
quasi-static loading condition.
4.2. Cyclic loading tests on walls
Fig. 3 shows the test setup for the squat walls. The bottom RC block
was anchored to the strong floor using eight steel rods, each of which
had a prestressed force of 1900 kN. Horizontal displacement reversals
were applied to the top RC block via three hydraulic actuators with a
total loading capacity of 3000 kN. The magnitude of the applied hor-
izontal force was measured using load cells linked to the actuators. The
height between the horizontal center line of the hydraulic actuator and
the base of the wall element was hw = 1700 mm. The target drift ratio
history for the displacement reversals is shown in Fig. 4. The drift ratio
was calculated as the ratio of the wall deflection measured at the height
of the hydraulic actuator to the shear span length hw. The test was
terminated when the strength of the wall decreased to below 80% of the
peak strength.
The locations of the devices for measuring the displacements and
rotations of the wall specimens are shown in Fig. 3. The lateral de-
flection of the wall was monitored using a linear variable displacement
transducer (LVDT) with a stroke length of ± 1000 mm. The transducer
was attached to the top RC block and aligned to the center line of the
hydraulic actuator. The measured wall drift was corrected for the minor
slip and rotation of the fixed RC foundation. Moreover, a dense array of
strain gauges was mounted on both the longitudinal and horizontal
reinforcement to monitor the reinforcement strains during the tests. The
locations of these gauges are illustrated in Fig. 5(a). The deformation of
the walls was monitored using an Optotrak Certus optical measurement
system. An array of Optotrak light sensors in grids of
250 mm × 250 mm was attached to one side of the wall specimen, as
shown in Fig. 5(b). In addition, a row of Optotrak sensors was mounted
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C.-C. Hung and P.-L. Hsieh Structures 23 (2020) 56–68

Table 3
Reinforcement designs of the squat walls.
Specimen Web region Boundary element Dowel bars

Grade horizontal steel vertical steel vertical steel confinement

HSC/75-HS SD785 8#4(D13) 8#4(D13) 6#10(D32) #3(D10)@50 mm 10#5(D16)

UHPC/0-HS SD785
UHPC/150-NS SD420 #3(D10)@80 mm
UHPC/150-HS SD785

Fig. 4. Applied reversed drift ratios.

and d2 are the diagonal lengths of the original strip, and d1' and d2' are
the diagonal lengths of the deformed strip (see Fig. 6). The lateral
displacement component of the wall element due to shear distortion can
4
be estimated as i = 1 µi h 0 , where h 0 is the initial height of the strip.
Moreover, the average curvature along the wall height can be estimated
as [7]:

Fig. 2. Tensile testing of dog-bone-shaped specimens. diL diR

i =
h0 L (2)
on the bottom RC block for monitoring the potential sliding and rota-
where i is the average curvature (rad/m) of the ith strip, diL and diR are
tion of the RC foundation.
the lengths of the two edges of strip i, respectively, and L is the hor-
The relative sliding between the RC foundation and the wall ele-
izontal distance between the edge sensors. The lateral displacement
ment was computed as the difference between the horizontal co-
component of the wall due to the flexural rotation of the instrumented
ordinates of the Optotrak markers at the base of the wall element and 4
region can then be estimated as i = 1 i h 0 hitop [7], where hitop is the
the bottom RC block. The average shear distortion, μi, for strip i in the
vertical distance from the mid-height of the ith strip to the hydraulic
wall element (see Fig. 5(b)) can be estimated as [2]:
actuator.
(d1' d1) d1 (d2' d2) d2
µi =
2H L ' ' (1)

where H and L are the height and length of the strip, respectively, d1
' '

Fig. 3. Test setup of the squat shear walls (unit: mm).

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C.-C. Hung and P.-L. Hsieh Structures 23 (2020) 56–68

Fig. 5. Locations of sensors for measuring reinforcement strains and wall deformation (units: mm).

Fig. 6. Notations used in calculation of the shear distortion.

Fig. 7. Tensile behavior of UHPC/150.

5. Experimental resuls
5.1. Material properties
The tensile and compressive properties of the concrete materials are
summarized in Table 4. Fig. 7 shows the uniaxial tensile stress-strain
responses of the UHPC/150 material. The results indicate that UHPC/
150 exhibited tensile strain-hardening behavior with a post-cracking
strain of about 0.2%. In addition, the tensile strength of UHPC in-
creased from 3.1 to 5.6 MPa after the inclusion of steel fibers.
5.2. Damage patterns and load-displacement responses of squat walls
The damage patterns and the load-displacement relationships of the
squat shear walls are shown in Figs. 8–15. While all squat walls reached
their peak strength at 1.0% drift, their differences in concrete materials
led to distinct damage patterns and post-peak responses.
At a 1% drift ratio, diagonal shear cracks were present in all squat
walls. The strength of UHPC/0-HS dropped sharply, by about 30%, at
the second cycle to the 1% drift ratio because of the extensively loca-
lized shear cracks and significant concrete spalling in the wall web and
at the wall corner, as shown in Fig. 10(b). UHPC/0-HS ultimately
showed a brittle shear-dominate failure pattern without reaching its

Table 4
Summary of design and experimental results of the walls (SI units).
Specimen Concrete properties Squat walls

Designs Tests

Compressive strength (MPa) Tensile strength (MPa) Ultimate tensile strain (%) Vn Vmn Mn (kN-m) Vn Vmax Drift capacity (%)
Vmn
Acv f 'c Acv f 'c Acv f 'c

HSC/75-HS 82 – – 0.78 1.09 4035 0.72 0.99 1.5

UHPC/0-HS 114 3.1 0.10 0.70 0.96 4191 0.73 0.75 1
UHPC/150-NS 93 5.6 2.3 0.54 0.99 3932 0.55 0.99 1.5
UHPC/150-HS 93 5.6 2.3 0.75 1.04 4071 0.72 0.99 1.5

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C.-C. Hung and P.-L. Hsieh Structures 23 (2020) 56–68

Fig. 8. Damage patterns of the wall HSC/75-HS.

Fig. 9. Load-displacement responses of specimen HSC/75-HS.

Fig. 10. Damage patterns of specimen UHPC/0-HS.

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C.-C. Hung and P.-L. Hsieh Structures 23 (2020) 56–68

Fig. 11. Load-displacement responses of specimen UHPC/0-HS.

Fig. 12. Damage patterns of specimen UHPC/150-NS.

Fig. 13. Load-displacement responses of specimen UHPC/150-NS.

nominal flexural strength. In contrast, the fiber-reinforced walls showed the damage tolerance ability of the walls, thus restraining concrete
only narrow diagonal cracks without observable concrete spalling after spalling under cyclic loading. In particular, the squat walls made using
completing three cycles to 1% drift. This result implies that the addition UHPC/150 (i.e., UHPC/150-NS and UHPC/150-HS) had significantly
of steel fibers in the shear-critical squat HSC walls effectively improved more hairline cracks than those for HSC/75-HS, suggesting that UHPC/

62
C.-C. Hung and P.-L. Hsieh
Fig. 14. Damage patterns of specimen UHPC/150-HS.
Fig. 15. Load-displacement responses of specimen UHPC/150-HS.
150 had better crack width control compared to that of HSC/75.
The diagonal tensile cracks in HSC/75-HS and UHPC/150-NS ob-
viously localized during the first cycle to the 1.5% drift demand,
causing the strengths of the walls to decrease, as can be seen in Figs. 9
and 13. During the second cycle to the 1.5% drift ratio, the strength of
both walls dropped significantly, by more than 30%, due to the sub-
stantially localized diagonal cracks, which considerably impaired the
strut mechanism of the walls for resisting shears. HSC/75-HS and
UHPC/150-NS ultimately failed during the second cycle to the 1.5%
drift ratio in a shear-dominant mode before or when just reaching the
nominal flexural strength. It is worth mentioning that the computed
nominal flexural strength was lower than the actual flexural strength of
the wall because it did not account for the enhanced tensile strength of
concrete due to the addition of steel fibers.
As shown in Fig. 14(b) and 15(a), UHPC/150-HS failed during the
third cycle to the 1.5% drift ratio in a shear-dominant mode without
reaching its nominal flexural strength. A comparison of Figs. 12(b) and
14(b) indicates that the replacement of SD420 steel by SD785 steel in
UHPC/150-NS had a negligible influence on the damage pattern of the
wall. However, the increase in the steel strength moderately enhanced
the strength retention of the wall under displacement reversals; see
Figs. 13 and 15. It also reduced the strength degradation from 56% in
UHPC/150-NS to 28% in UHPC/150-HS after three cycles to the 1.5%
drift ratio had been completed, where the strength degradation is
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Structures 23 (2020) 56–68
defined as the ratio of the loss in the peak strength to the peak strength
of the wall. Overall, no obvious concrete spalling or crushing was ob-
served in any of the fiber-reinforced walls at the end of the tests, even in
the wall with HSC/75-HS that contained only a small volume fraction of
fibers.
6. Discussion
The behavior of the squat shear walls under displacement reversals
was further evaluated using various performance measures, including
the number of cracks, energy dissipation capacity, stiffness, reinforce-
ment strain, and detailed deformation component.
6.1. Number of cracks
The relationships between the drift demand versus the number of
cracks recorded in the first loading cycle to each target drift for the
walls are plotted in Fig. 16. It can be seen that the total number of
cracks for the walls made using UHPC/150 (UHPC/150-HS and UHPC/
150-NS) is about double that for the other two walls (HSC/75-HS and
UHPC/0-HS). This indicates that the unique multiple-narrow-crack
pattern of UHPC/150 at the material level was reflected at the struc-
tural level. It is interesting to note that UHPC/150-NS had a slightly
greater number of cracks than that for UHPC/150-HS. This can be
C.-C. Hung and P.-L. Hsieh
Fig. 16. Number of cracks in the squat walls.
Fig. 17. Energy dissipation capacities of the squat walls.
attributed to the higher bond demand between the HSS and the matrix
in the latter, which aggravated the stress localization in the wall.
Moreover, although HSC/75 contained a 0.75% volume fraction of fi-
bers, its number of cracks was similar to that for UHPC/0-HS, which
lacked fibers. This is likely because HSC/75, which is not a high-per-
formance fiber-reinforced cement composite, showed tensile softening
behavior after the cracking strength was reached. As a result, it was
unable to limit the growth of cracks after their initiation.
6.2. Energy dissipation capacity
Fig. 17 shows the cumulative energy dissipation capacity versus the
drift response for the squat shear walls. The dissipated energy of the
wall was calculated as the enclosed area of the load-displacement
hysteretic loops. The results indicate that the addition of steel fibers
considerably enhanced the energy dissipation capacities for the shear-
controlled squat walls by more than two-fold prior to the failure of the
walls. This is due to the reduced pinching behavior in the load-dis-
placement hysteresis loops that resulted from the enhanced shear re-
sistance and anti-spalling ability for the fiber-reinforced walls, which
alleviated shear-related damage. It is worth noting that even for HSC/
75-HS, which was made using commercially available HSC with the
addition of a small amount of steel fibers (i.e., 0.75%), the energy
dissipation capacity was comparable to that of the squat walls made
using the specially mixed UHPC/150 material.
The energy dissipation capacity of UHPC/150-HS was close to those
for UHPC/150-NS and HSC/75-HS until the 1.0% drift demand. An
enhancement in the energy dissipation capacity due to the combined
use of UHPC/150 and HSS in the squat wall was observed after the
1.0% drift demand. This is likely because the onset of inelasticity in the
horizontal reinforcement was postponed due to the increase in the re-
inforcement strength, thus improving the degradation in the shear
strength and the associated pinching hysteresis loops for the squat wall
in the ultimate limit state.
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Structures 23 (2020) 56–68
Fig. 18. Secant stiffness of the squat walls.
6.3. Stiffness
The secant stiffness versus drift relationships for the squat walls
under cyclic loading are shown in Fig. 18. The secant stiffness of the
wall at a specified drift demand was computed as the slope between the
load-displacement values at the maximum and minimum target drifts in
the first repeating cycle. Compared with UHPC/0-HS, which lacked
steel fibers, the initial secant stiffness was significantly improved by
about 70%, 40%, and 30% for HSC/75-HS, UHPC/150-NS, and UHPC/
150-HS, respectively. Particularly, the enhanced stiffness due to the
inclusion of fibers remained stable under increased drift demand, im-
plying that the accumulated damage in the fiber-reinforced walls due to
displacement reversals was controlled relatively well. In contrast, the
degradation in the stiffness of UHPC/0-HS became more obvious when
the drift demand was greater than 0.75%. This can be attributed to the
significant concrete spalling, which reduced the effective cross-sec-
tional area of the wall.
Moreover, the results indicate that the inclusion of coarse aggregate
in HSC/75-HS considerably increased the initial stiffness of the squat
wall by about 20% compared with that for the two UHPC/150 walls.
Nevertheless, the enhancement of the stiffness due to the inclusion of
coarse aggregate rapidly became minor as the drift demand increased.
The difference in the stiffness values of the three fiber-reinforced walls
was negligible at drift demands of 0.75% and 1.0%. At the ultimate
limit state of the walls, UHPC/150-HS and HSC/75-HS, which were
reinforced with a higher grade steel, had a slightly improved stiffness
compared to that of UHPC/150-NS due to the enhanced strength re-
tention.
6.4. Steel reinforcement strains
Fig. 19(a) shows the strain profiles of the horizontal reinforcements
along the length of the walls at drift ratios of 0.75%, 1.0%, and 1.5%. It
can be seen that when the drift demand was 0.75%, the horizontal
reinforcement in UHPC/150-NS nearly reached the yield strain. When
the drift demand was increased to 1.0%, the horizontal reinforcement
in UHPC/150-NS yielded substantially, whereas that in the other walls
remained elastic due to the use of HSS, whose yield strain was about
0.39%.
The strain profiles of the vertical reinforcing bars along the length of
the walls are shown in Fig. 19(b). It can be seen that the boundary
vertical reinforcement in all squat walls showed inelastic deformation
when the drift demand was 0.75%. Sufficient and distributed vertical
reinforcement is required, in addition to the horizontal reinforcement,
for squat walls to restrain the inclined cracks effectively. It is stipulated
by ACI 318 that the vertical reinforcement ratio shall be at least the
horizontal reinforcement ratio if the aspect ratio of the wall does not
exceed 2.0. The results in Fig. 19(b) indicate that the normal-strength
vertical reinforcement in the web of UHPC/150-NS yielded before the
drift demand reached 0.75%. In contrast, the high-strength vertical
reinforcement in the webs of other walls remained elastic during the
C.-C. Hung and P.-L. Hsieh Structures 23 (2020) 56–68

Fig. 19. Strain profiles of steel reinforcements at various drift demands.

Fig. 20. Proportions of the displacement components due to various mechanisms.

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C.-C. Hung and P.-L. Hsieh
Fig. 21. Comparisons between the experimental strengths and the computed
shear strengths for the squat walls.
tests regardless of the type of concrete materials.
The delay in the onset of the reinforcement’s plastic behavior due to
the replacement of SD420 steel with SD785 steel for the web re-
inforcement implies that the shear crack width control of the squat
walls can be enhanced, consequently reducing or eliminating post-
earthquake repair in the design basis and maximum considered earth-
quakes. In addition, it is interesting to note that despite the high strain
demand (0.01 mm/mm) for the horizontal reinforcement in UHPC/150-
NS at 1.0%, only narrow cracks were observed in the wall. This result
indicates that the inclusion of a 1.5% volume fraction of steel fibers in
the UHPC walls effectively restrained the widening of shear cracks even
when the horizontal reinforcement in the squat wall had yielded sub-
stantially.
At a drift demand of 1.5%, the horizontal reinforcement in both
HSC/75-HS and UHPC/150-HS showed inelastic behavior, as can be
seen in Fig. 19(c). In particular, when the concrete material in the HSS-
reinforced wall was changed from UHPC/150 to HSC/75, the strain
demand for the horizontal reinforcement increased from 0.004 to
0.007 mm/mm (more than 50%). This result suggests that UHPC/150
had higher and more stable shear resistance than that of HSC/75,
leading to improved strength retention of UHPC/150-HS over HSC/75-
HS at a drift demand of 1.5%, as shown in the previous section.
Moreover, the results show that the horizontal reinforcement in
UHPC/0-HS remained elastic until the end of the test. This is because
the premature, significant concrete spalling in UHPC/0-HS undermined
the anchorage of the horizontal reinforcement in the wall. As a result,
the HSS in UHPC/0-HS was not able to fully utilize its yield strength.
This result also implies that using the nominal yield strength of SD785
steel to design the shear strength of UHPC/0-HS could cause an over-
estimation in the actual shear capacity of the wall.
The inclusion of steel fibers in the squat HSC walls, which effec-
tively restrained concrete spalling, was beneficial for sustaining the
bond strength between the steel reinforcement and the concrete matrix
under cyclic loading. In particular, the fiber-reinforced UHPC had en-
hanced bond strength at its interface with the steel bars [28] and thus
permits a significant reduction in the required development length of
steel bars compared with that required for conventional RC members.
As a result, the inclusion of fibers in squat walls can facilitate the de-
velopment of yield strength for high-strength transverse steel bars in
the ultimate limit state of walls.
6.5. Components of wall deflection
The deflection of the squat walls mainly consisted of three compo-
nents, which were associated with flexural deformation, shear distor-
tion, and sliding displacement, respectively. Fig. 20 shows the re-
lationships between the drift demand and the ratio of the deflection
component to the overall deflection for each squat wall. It can be seen
in Fig. 20(b) that UHPC/0-HS had the highest shear distortion content
(close to 70%) and the lowest flexural deformation content (less than
66
Structures 23 (2020) 56–68
20%) throughout the test. This implies that although UHPC/0-HS was
reinforced with the high-strength horizontal reinforcement, the pre-
mature concrete spalling and unused capacity in the horizontal re-
inforcement undermined its shear resistance, and thus UHPC/0-HS had
the most critical shear-dominant behavior among the squat walls.
Compared with the shear-critical behavior in UHPC/0-HS, that in
HSC/75-HS was alleviated, as evidenced by the reduced shear distor-
tion content and increased flexural deformation content shown in
Fig. 20(a). This result indicates that the addition of steel fibers and the
fully utilized yield strength in the high-strength horizontal reinforce-
ment were beneficial for enhancing the shear resistance of HSC/75-HS.
A comparison of Fig. 20(a) and (d) implies that although replacing the
concrete material in HSC/75-HS with UHPC/150 only slightly atte-
nuated the shear distortion content from 50% to 45%, it significantly
reduced the sliding displacement content by more than half throughout
the test. The lower sliding displacement content can be attributed to the
delay and alleviation of the crack localization due to the beneficial
crack width control of the UHPC/150 material. It also in turn increased
the preferred flexural deformation content from 30% in HSC/75-HS to
40% in UHPC/150-HS at the drift demand of 1.5%. The same rationale
can be applied to the low sliding displacement content of UHPC/150-
NS, as shown in Fig. 20(c).
The benefit of replacing SD420 steel by SD785 steel in the squat
wall can be observed by comparing the results of UHPC/150-NS and
UHPC/150-HS in Fig. 20(c) and (d). Increasing the strength of the web
reinforcement in the UHPC/150 walls reduced the shear distortion
content from 60% to 50% and increased the flexural deflection content
from 30% to 40% at the drift demand of 1.5%, thus leading to enhanced
strength retention and energy dissipation for the squat wall.
7. Strength of squat HSS-reinforced concrete shear walls
7.1. Influence of HSC material type
The strengths of the squat walls obtained in the experiments are
summarized in Table 4 and illustrated in Fig. 21. The strengths were
normalized by Acv f ' c to facilitate their comparison with the design
strengths addressed in ACI 318-19, where Acv is the cross-sectional area
of the wall. The results show that the non-fiber UHPC wall (UHPC/0-
HS) had the lowest shear strength (0.75 f ' c ) even though it had the
highest concrete compressive strength and was reinforced with a
moderate amount of HS horizontal reinforcement (steel volumetric
ratio = 0.6%). Notably, although its strength was about 10% less than
0.83 f ' c , which is the maximum allowable design shear specified by
ACI 318-19 for avoiding brittle diagonal compression failure, the limit
strain capacity of non-fiber UHPC at the material level caused it to have
a brittle diagonal compression failure pattern with significant spalling,
failing to utilize the strengths of both the concrete and steel materials.
Future studies with more comprehensive test results are required to
assess whether a new upper bound for the design shear strength that is
lower than the maximum allowable value (0.83 f ' c ) specified in ACI
318-19 should be considered for squat non-fiber UHPC walls.
The squat walls made of HSC/75 and UHPC/150 had the strengths
of as high as 0.99 f ' c and avoided a brittle failure mode. It is worth
mentioning that their strength values were about 20% higher than the
maximum allowable design shear specified by ACI 318-19. This implies
the potential of increasing the upper bound for the design shear
strength of a squat wall made using HSC/75 or UHPC/150 from the
current code-specified 0.83 f ' c to 0.99 f ' c , which in turn permits a
reduced cross-sectional area of the wall compared to squat walls made
using conventional concrete materials. The results also reveal that HSC/
75-HS and UHPC/150-HS performed equally well in terms of the
strength although the former had a lower fiber content and concrete
compressive strength. This is likely because the presence of coarse ag-
gregate in HSC/75-HS provided a greater frictional force along the
C.-C. Hung and P.-L. Hsieh
diagonal crack surface owing to aggregate interlock.
Moreover, the results indicate that the replacement of SD420 steel
with SD785 steel for the horizontal reinforcement in UHPC/150-NS did
not increase the shear capacity of the wall even though the horizontal
reinforcement fully utilized its yield strength in both cases. This is be-
cause, as is well known [31,32], the strength of the squat walls was
mainly governed by the compressive strength and effective cross-sec-
tional area of the diagonal strut of the walls whereas the horizontal
reinforcement was more influential in enhancing the ductility of the
squat walls.
7.2. Design shear strengths
The shear strengths of the squat walls were evaluated using
Vn = Acv (0.25 f 'c + t fy ) as per ACI 318-19 [9] but neglecting the upper
strength limit on the horizontal reinforcement, where t is the steel ratio
of the horizontal reinforcement and fy is the measured yield strength of
the horizontal reinforcement. The obtained strengths, normalized by
Acv f ' c , are shown along with the tests results in Fig. 21. As can be
seen, the non-fiber UHPC wall reinforced with HSS, i.e., UHPC/0-HS,
had a computed shear strength close to the actual shear strength.
However, this was merely a coincidence because the high-strength
horizontal reinforcement in UHPC/0-HS remained elastic during the
test while its yield strength was used in the evaluation equation.
All the fiber-reinforced walls had computed shear strengths that
were considerably lower than their actual strengths (by 21%–45%),
even when the fiber content was only 0.75% (HSC/75-HS). This can be
attributed to the conservative nature of the equation of the design codes
that led to a considerable underestimation of the actual shear strength.
In addition, the shear strength equation for squat walls in ACI 318-19 is
based on empirical expressions originally derived for beams with a
shear failure mode governed by diagonal tension. However, it is widely
known that the shear strength of squat walls mainly depends on the
concrete compressive strength in the flexural compression zone at the
boundaries of the walls [31]. Furthermore, the stress flow within a
squat wall is highly disturbed due to the concentrated load and reac-
tion. Consequently, it is unreasonable to assume a uniform shear stress
over the depth of a squat shear wall, as in the case of beam members.
Instead, a strut-and-tie model, with compressive struts representing the
compressive flow in the concrete and tension ties representing the steel
tension, is believed to be a rational approach for modeling the force
flow within a squat wall.
7.3. Softened Strut-and-Tie model
Hwang et al. [3] proposed a softened strut-and-tie model for de-
termining the shear strength of squat RC walls. In their apprach, the
shear strength of an RC wall was evaluated as Vsu = K fc 'Astr , where Vsu
is the shear strength of the wall, K is the diagonal index of horizontal
and vertical struts for taking into account the beneficial effect of the tie
force on the shear strength, =
3.35
is the compressive softening
fc'(MPa)
coefficient of concrete, which is used to account for the reduced com-
pressive strength of a strut due to the tension in the orthogonal direc-
tion [3,33–35], and Astr is the effective cross-sectional area of the strut.
Although the model has been shown to generate reasonably accurate
results for the shear strengths of conventional squat RC walls [3,35], its
applicability for squat RC walls with HSS and different types of HSC
materials is unknown.
The shear strengths of the squat walls in this study were evaluated
using the softened strut-and-tie model. The results (denoted as S&T) are
shown in Fig. 21. It can be seen that similar to the shear equation in ACI
318, the softened strut-and-tie model underestimates the strengths for
all squat walls, especially for the fiber-reinforced walls. It is also in-
teresting to note that the discrepancy between the results obtained in
the tests and by the softened strut-and-tie model are about 40% for all
67
Structures 23 (2020) 56–68
the fiber-reinforced walls. This considerable and consistent deviation is
mainly due to the concrete softening coefficient proposed by Hwang
et al. [35] not accounting for the influence of the advantageous con-
finment behavior and enhanced tensile capacity of the HSC/75 and
UHPC/150 materials in alleviating the adverse effect of the orthogonal
tension on the compressive behavior of the diagonal strut.
Before comprehensive test results regarding the biaxial behavior of
the HSC/75 and UHPC materials are available for deriving a more
rigorous expression of the softening coefficient , = ' is sug-
5.72
fc (MPa)
gested for squat walls made using HSC/75 and UHPC/150 based on the
limit experimental results in this study. The new coefficient is de-
termined using the ordinary least-squares method that minimizes the
sum of squared residuals for the test data. Fig. 21 shows the shear
strengths of HSC/75-HS, UHPC/150-NS, and UHPC/150-HS predicted
by the softened strut-and-tie model with the new concrete softening
coefficient (termed modified S&T in Fig. 21). It can be seen that the use
of the modified concrete softening coefficient leads to reasonably ac-
curate predictions for the strengths of the squat walls made using the
HSC/75 and UHPC/150 materials, with an error of less than 5%.
More comprehensive experimental tests are required in future stu-
dies to evaluate the effect of HSC and steel fibers on the shear capacity
of squat walls with different designs. Particularly, direct comparisons of
the cyclic behaviors of squat walls with normal strength concrete and
HSC are required.
8. Conclusions
The shear failure behavior of four squat HSS-reinforced shear walls
with different types of HSC materials was experimentally investigated
in is study. The applicability of existing design provisions and the sof-
tened strut-and-tie model for evaluating the shear strengths of the squat
walls was assessed. The results show that the squat walls had distinct
behaviors under displacement reversals due to the differences in their
concrete materials and steel grades. The main conclusions are sum-
marized below:
(1) The limit strain capacity of the UHPC/0 material caused UHPC/0-
HS to fail at a drift demand of 1.0% with significant concrete
spalling. In contrast, all fiber-reinforced squat walls, even HSC/75-
HS, which only had a small fiber content of 0.75%, showed only
narrow shear-related cracks without obvious concrete spalling or
crushing prior to the 1.0% drift demand. The fiber-reinforced walls
ultimately failed at a 1.5% drift ratio due to substantially localized
diagonal cracks, which considerably impaired the strut mechanism
of the walls.
(2) Although the replacement of the SD420 horizontal reinforcement in
UHPC/150-NS by the SD785 one had only a minor influence on the
damage pattern of the wall, it led to a lower shear distortion content
of the wall, which consequently enhanced strength retention and
energy dissipation. In addition, it also postponed the onset of the
web reinforcement’s plastic behavior, at a drift ratio of about 0.75%
to 1.5% or after, implying that the shear crack width control of the
squat walls could be enhanced, thus reducing or eliminating post-
earthquake repair in both the design basis and maximum con-
sidered earthquakes.
(3) When the concrete material in HSC/75-HS was replaced by UHPC/
150, the sliding displacement and the strain demand of the hor-
izontal reinforcement were substantially reduced by about a half
due to the delay and alleviation of crack localization as a result of
the beneficial crack width control of the UHPC/150 material. This
also in turn promoted the strength retention and preferred flexural
deformation content of the wall.
(4) The addition of steel fibers considerably enhanced the secant stiff-
ness of the walls in the cyclic tests. In contrast, although the in-
clusion of coarse aggregate enabled HSC/75-HS to have an initial
C.-C. Hung and P.-L. Hsieh
stiffness that was about 20% higher than that of the UHPC/150
walls, unlike the sustained enhanced stiffness under the increased
drift demand provided by the fibers, the improvement in the stiff-
ness due to the inclusion of coarse aggregate rapidly became minor
as the drift demand increased. Furthermore, while the steel grade
had no observable influence on the stiffness of the wall in the in-
termediate limit state, it slightly enhanced the stiffness in the ulti-
mate limit state due to the improved strength retention of the wall.
(5) The transverse SD785 reinforcement in UHPC/0-HS remained
elastic until the end of the test due to the prematurely undermined
anchorage of the horizontal reinforcement. This result implies that
using the yield strength of SD785 steel to design the shear strength
of UHPC/0-HS could overestimate the shear capacity of the wall. In
contrast, the yield strength of the transverse SD785 steel in the
HSC/75 and UHPC/150 walls (which contained fibers) was devel-
oped and sustained until the ultimate limit state of the walls.
(6) The non-fiber UHPC wall, which failed in a brittle shear failure
mode, had the lowest shear strength of 0.75 f ' c even though it had
the highest concrete strength and was reinforced with HSS. In
contrast, in addition to avoiding the brittle failure, the HSC/75 and
UHPC/150 walls had a strength of as high as 0.99 f ' c , which was
considerably greater than their design shear strengths by 27%–83%
and was also about 20% higher than the maximum allowable design
shear of 0.83 f ' c specified by ACI 318-19.
(7) The original softened strut-and-tie model consistently under-
estimated the strengths of the UHPC/150 and HSC/75 walls by
about 40%. To take into account the beneficial effect of steel fibers
on alleviating the adverse influence of the orthogonal tension on
the compressive strength of the diagonal strut of the wall, a mod-
ified concrete softening coefficient was suggested based on the test
results. A comparison between the test results and the analytical
solutions showed that the use of the modified concrete softening
coefficient led to reasonably accurate predictions for the strengths
of the squat walls with the HSC/75 and UHPC/150 materials, re-
gardless of the steel grade.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
This research was sponsored in part by the Ministry of Science and
Technology in Taiwan under grant 108-2636-E-006-009. The technical
support in the experimental tests on the walls provided by the National
Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering (NCREE), Taiwan, is
appreciated. The opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed in this
paper are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect those of
the sponsors.
Funding
This study was funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology in
Taiwan under grant 108-2636-E-006-009.
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