Behavior of fully grouted reinforced concrete masonry shear walls failing in flexure: Analysis

This paper contains analysis details of an experimental study conducted to evaluate the ductility and energy dissipation characteristics of reinforced concrete masonry shear walls failing in flexure. The test program consisted of six reinforced concrete masonry shear walls tested under reversed cyclic lateral displacements simulating seismic loading effects. This paper focuses on documenting the levels of ductility attained by the walls and evaluating the contribution of flexure and shear deformations to the overall wall lateral displacement. Analysis of the measured displacements showed that the contribution of shear displacement to the overall wall displacement was significant (up to 28% of total displacement at maximum load) but was not the same for all the walls having height-to-length ratio of 2.0. Displacement ductility values up to 4.5 and 11.4 were measured corresponding to maximum load and 20% strength degradation, respectively. Values up to 3.5 were calculated for the ductility-related seismic response modification factor for the test walls corresponding to design drift levels of 1%. The relationship between the energy dissipation and the ratio of the post-yield to the yield displacement was found to be almost linear for the test walls. In addition, the wall stiffnesses degrade rapidly to about 50% of their initial stiffness at very low drift levels (0.1% drift); however, the test walls maintained at least 80% of their maximum strength up to large displacements (2.2% drift).