Investigation of Seismic Performance of Reinforced Concrete Shear Walls With Eccentric Openings

The strong earthquakes recorded worldwide have shown that the damages and the failure mechanisms of the reinforced concrete structural walls depend on a series of factors, such as the shape in plan and elevation, the dimensions of the walls and openings. During the past several decades, extensive experimental and analytical studies have been conducted on the behavior of structural walls with openings. This article describes an Analytical study carried out on of reinforced concrete walls with eccentric opening. In order to achieve this goal, variations in various parameters including changes in the aspect ratio of the openings, the stiffness of the link beam, the aspect ratio of the openings with simple connection at the both end of link beams and the aspect ratio of the walls are studied. Story drift, center of mass displacement, shear and moment in coupling beams and axial load in columns which coupled with shear wall are analyzed and compared together. The results show that by decreasing the aspect ratio of the openings (ho/lo), the axial load in the column coupled with the wall decreases and with increasing rigidity of the link beam the shear forces in link beam increased and center of mass displacement and story drift are reduced. The strength of structural wall components becomes different in pull/push loading direction due to the eccentric opening location. Also, compared to seven buildings, decreasing the wall aspect ratio from the axial forces in the column and shear forces in the link beam decreases.