Modelling of reinforced concrete structural walls

The reinforced concrete structural wall is an important lateral load resisting element. It is increasingly used by designers in new structures as well the rehabilitation of existing ones. There are models that represent the flexural behaviour of walls to various degrees of accuracy. However, an efficient model is needed for accurate representation of the flexural and shear behaviour of these walls. A macro model that represents the behaviour of structural walls is developed. The model consists of nonlinear springs connected by linear beam elements. The defined models of these springs are capable of describing the hysteretic characteristics of reinforced concrete structures with sufficient accuracy. Moreover, the model is capable of idealizing both shear and flexural behaviours of reinforced concrete structural walls. The model response predictions are verified to be in close agreement with experimental measurements.