Abstract
Experimental and numerical studies were done to investigate seismic performance of slender shear walls with no boundary confinement that are principal structural members of high0rise bearing wall buildings. 1/3 scale specimens that model the plastic region of long slender shear walls subjected to combined axial load and bending moment were tested to investigate strength, ductility, capacity of energy dissipation, and strain distribution, The experimental results show that the slender shear walls fail due to early crushing in the compressive boundary, and then have very low ductility. The measured maximum compressive strain is 0.0021, much less than 0.004 being commonly used for estimation of ductility. This result indicates that the maximum compressive strain is not a fixed value but is affected by moment gradient along the shear wall height and distance from the neutral axis to the extreme compressive fiber.
