Behavior of High-Performance Concrete Shear Walls with Openings under Reversed Cyclic Loading

Abstract

Shear walls are used to carry lateral loads and gravity loads in tall structures. Openings are an integral part of these walls for accommodating windows, doors, service ducts, and so on; these openings affect the entire behavior of the structures. This paper discusses experimental and numerical studies on high-performance concrete (HPC) and high-performance fiber-reinforced cement concrete (HPFRCC) slender shear walls with and without openings. Six shear wall specimens having a three-story height (one-fourth scaled down) were studied to understand the effects of the opening orientation and steel fibers on HPC shear walls. A significant reduction in strength and stiffness was observed in the specimens with openings (opening ratio 15.6%). The addition of steel fibers (volume fraction 0.5%) was more effective in the specimens with openings than the solid specimens. Models of the specimens developed in the finite element software ANSYS yielded results comparable to the experimental study. Two additional HPC and HPFRCC specimens were modeled to study the effect of different patterns of additional reinforcement around the openings. Replacement of vertical and horizontal reinforcing bars obstructed by the openings on the edges of the openings was most effective.