Experimental Study on Shear Wall with Slab and Openings

This study investigated the structural behaviors of reinforced concrete shear walls containing opening and slab. a series of three half-scale shear wall specimens were tested: a solid wall (ws-solid),a wall with opening and slab (ws-023),and a wall with opening but no slab (wb-0.23). using the experimental results,the reduction in the load-carrying capacity of the wall due to the loss of cross section was evaluated. its contribution to the moment resisting capacity of the total system of coupling elements and its structural behavior was also examined. the results of experiments conducted on the ws-0.23 specimen with artificial damage due to installation of the opening,and showed that the load-carrying capacity of the wall decreased as a result of the opening. it is apparent that the influence of cutting reinforcing bars and the reduction of effective sectional area lead to early first yield of the reinforcing bars before the allowable limit of the drift ratio of the shear walls is reached. this decrease in the load-carrying capacity of the shear wall because of installation of openings is significantly different from the results of previous studies. this is because slabs and the remaining wall function as coupling elements for the shear wall. the contribution of slabs and residual wall to the lateral load resisting system was investigated via an empirical test and finite-element analysis. during the experiment,a u-shaped critical section of coupling slab was observed and its effective width and the total length of the critical section examined. the critical section of coupling slab that functions as a coupling element for shear wall varied marginally from the results of previous studies. the results of the analysis conducted show that slabs and residual walls contribute approximately 30% to the lateral load resisting system. © 2016,iran university of science and technology.