Initial stiffness of reinforced concrete structural walls with irregular openings.

Abstract

Reinforced concrete (RC) structural walls with openings are the primary lateral-load-carrying elements

utilized in many structures designed to resist earthquakes. A review of the technical literature shows

that there is a considerable amount of uncertainty with regards to the elastic stiffness of these structures

when subjected to seismic excitations. Current design practices often employ a stiffness reduction factor

to deal with this uncertainty. In an attempt to develop additional information regarding the stiffness of

these structures, this paper discusses an approach to determine the initial stiffness of RC structural walls

with irregular openings and low aspect ratios. This approach would consider the effect of both flexural

and shear deformations. As a part of this study, an analytical approach to determine stiffness was also

developed and validated by comparing theoretical and experimental results obtained from six RC shear

walls with irregular openings. Simple equations for assessing initial stiffness of RC structural walls with

irregular openings are then proposed, based on these parametric case studies.