NONLINEAR FIBER ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF A REINFORCED CONCRETE SHEAR WALL SUBJECTED TO EARTHQUAKE RECORDS

Verifying the behavior of shear walls in a tall building requires reliable response results. This paper examined nonlinear fiber element modeling of a slender reinforced concrete shear wall during large-scale shaking table testing. The goal was to understand and validate the inelastic responses given by fiber models using time history analysis. Reasonable agreement was found between the numerical and experimental responses. It was demonstrated that the spread of the second plastic hinge into the upper level of a shear wall can be adequately captured using fiber modeling in response to the effect of higher modes. The parameters of damping, shear stiffness, axial load, concrete strength, longitudinal reinforcement ratio and mass were examined. The shear and moment demand distribution were sensitive to axial loading, mass and reinforcement ratio. The drift distribution along the height, rotation, and top horizontal displacement were also investigated and it was found that the sole use of Rayleigh damping did not produce accurate responses. Increasing longitudinal reinforcement did not prevent nonlinear flexural behavior in the upper levels.