Shear Strength of Squat Reinforced Concrete Walls with Flanges and Barbells

摘要

Squat reinforced concrete walls are important components in nuclear structures. Shear strength is one of the key parameters for the force-based design of such walls. Predictive equations are available in the open literature for the shear strength of squat walls under seismic loading but these equations vary significantly in format and yield considerably different estimations for a given wall. Results of prior tests of 187 small-to-large scale squat walls with boundary elements (138 barbell and 49 flanged walls) are evaluated with the objective of analyzing the utility of four predictive equations: Chapter 21 of ACI 318-05 [1], Chapter 11 of ACI 318-05 [1], Barda et al. [2] and ASCE 43 [3]. ASCE 43 equation provides the best estimates of ultimate shear strength of squat reinforced concrete walls with barbells and flanges with a median ratio of the predicted to measured strengths close to 1.0 with a small coefficient of variation. All four equations overestimate the ultimate shear strength in a median sense.