Prediction of Lateral Load Deflection Curve of Reinforced Concrete Wall with Openings

Reinforced concrete walls are commonly used in modern residential buildings. Due to functional requirement, openings of doors and windows are often required for these walls. Since the seismic behavior of walls with openings is still unclean to engineers, the walls with openings are often neglected during seismic assessment. Ignoring the seismic resistance of walls with openings will highly underestimate the seismic capacity of residential buildings. It is detrimental for seismic design and retrofitting of building structures. This study proposed a simple analytical model for lateral load-deflection curve of walls with openings subjected to shear failures. Openings usually create weak zones within wall panels. The proposed model is applicable only to the walls with a single weak zone consisting of vertical wall segments, wall piers and columns. The lateral load-deflection curves of these key elements are first estimated individually and then combined based on the shear stiffness of elements. The rules to select load paths and formation of stiffness relationship and suggested in this study. In order to verify the propose model, two series of tests of RC walls with openings are compared with analytic results. It can be shown that the propose model can yield reasonable prediction of lateral load-deflection curves. The proposed model is simple and useful for seismic design and retrofitting of RC residual buildings.