Seismic performance of pre-stressed shear walls with bottom horizontal slits and buckling restrained reinforcement

Abstract

The research on seismic behavior of rocking structures with bottom horizontal slits got increasingly attention in recent years. The rocking structures could concentrate the deformation at the bottom slits and use the unbounded pre-stressed tendon to provide self-centering ability. Thus the residual deformation is small and the main structure is protected. This paper researches on the seismic behavior of a new-type pre-stressed shear wall with buckling restrained reinforcement. ABAQUS models are built to study the performance influence of the bottom slits length, slits height, and the number of buckling restrained reinforcement under quasi-static reversed cyclic loading conditions. The comparison is made between the behavior of the new-type walls and the traditional rocking structures. All these walls display a characteristic "flag-shape" hysteretic response. And the walls with buckling restrained reinforcement exhibit higher energy-dissipating ability than the traditional rocking walls do and also higher in lateral capacity. The results indicate that the new-type walls exhibit excellent self-centering property, energy-dissipating ability and the ability of protecting the main structure from being damaged.