Analytical investigation on lateral load responses of self-centering walls with distributed vertical dampers

Self-centering wall (SCW) is a resilient and sustainable structural system which incorporates unbonded posttensioning (PT) tendons to provide self-centering (SC) capacity along with supplementary dissipators to dissipate seismic energy. Hysteretic energy dissipators are usually placed at two sides of SCWs to facilitate ease of postearthquake examination and convenient replacement. To achieve a good prediction for the skeleton curve of the wall, this paper firstly developed an analytical investigation on lateral load responses of self-centering walls with distributed vertical dampers (VD-SCWs) using the concept of elastic theory. A simplified method for the calculation of limit state points is developed and validated by experimental results and can be used in the design of the system. Based on the analytical results, parametric analysis is conducted to investigate the influence of damper and tendon parameters on the performance of VD-SCWs. The results show that the proposed approach has a better prediction accuracy with less computational effects than the Perez method. As compared with previous experimental results, the proposed method achieves up to 60.1% additional accuracy at the effective linear limit (DLL) of SCWs. The base shear at point DLL is increased by 62.5% when the damper force is increased from 0kN to 80kN. The wall stiffness after point ELL is reduced by 69.5% when the tendon stiffness is reduced by 75.0%. The roof deformation at point LLP is reduced by 74.1% when the initial tendon stress is increased from $0.45f_{pu}$ to $0.65f_{pu}$.