• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.61 no.3
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• pp.407-417
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• 2017

RC shear walls are considered one of the main lateral resisting members in buildings. In recent years, FRP has been widely utilized in order to strengthen and retrofit concrete structures. A number of experimental studies used CFRP sheets as an external bracing system for retrofitting of RC shear walls. It has been found that the common mode of failure is the debonding of the CFRP-concrete adhesive material. In this study, behavior of RC shear wall was investigated with three different micro models. The analysis included 2D model using plane stress element, 3D model using shell element and 3D model using solid element. To allow for the debonding mode of failure, the adhesive layer was modeled using cohesive surface-to-surface interaction model at 3D analysis model and node-to-node interaction method using Cartesian elastic-plastic connector element at 2D analysis model. The FE model results are validated comparing the experimental results in the literature. It is shown that the proposed FE model can predict the modes of failure due to debonding of CFRP and behavior of CFRP strengthened RC shear wall reasonably well. Additionally, using 2D plane stress model, many parameters on the behavior of the cohesive surfaces are investigated such as fracture energy, interfacial shear stress, partial bonding, proposed CFRP anchor location and using different bracing of CFRP strips. Using two anchors near end of each diagonal CFRP strips delay the end debonding and increase the ductility for RC shear walls.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.351-361
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• 2017

Reinforced concrete(RC) structural walls are major lateral load-resisting structural member in building structures. Generally these RC structural walls are coupled with each other by the coupling beams and slabs, and therefore they behave as RC coupled structural wall system. In the design of these coupled structural wall systems, member forces are calculated using elastic structural analysis. These elastic analysis methodologies for the design of coupled structural wall system was not reasonable because it can not consider their ultimate behavior and assure economic feasibility. Performance based design and moment redistribution method to solve these problems is regarded as a reasonable alternative design method for RC coupled structural wall system. However, it is not verified under various design parameters. In this study, nonlinear analysis of RC coupled structural wall system was performed according to various design parameters such as reinforcement ratio, ultimate concrete strain and wall height. Based on analysis results, design considerations for coupled RC structural wall system was proposed.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.251-258
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• 2003

The early -age behavior of base restrained reinforced concrete (RC) walls is analyzed using a three-dimensional finite element method in this study. After calculating the temperature and internal relative humidity variations of an RC wall, determination of stresses due to thermal gradients, differential drying shrinkage, and average drying shrinkage is followed, and the relative contribution of these three stress components to the total stress is compared. The mechanical properties of early-age concrete, determined from many experimental studies, are taken into consideration, and a discrete reinforcing steel derived using the equivalent nodal force concept is also used to simulate the cracking behavior of RC walls. In advance, to Predict the crack spacing and maximum crack width in a base restrained RC wall, an analytical model which can simulate the post-cracking behavior of an RC tension member is introduced on the basis of the energy equilibrium before and after cracking of concrete.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.13-22
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• 2010

Masonry infill walls are frequently used as interior partitions and exterior walls in low- or middle- rise RC buildings. In the design and assessment of buildings, the infill walls are usually treated as non-structural elements and they are ignored in analytical models because they are assumed to be beneficial to the structural responses. Therefore, their influences on the structural response are ignored. In the case of buildings constructed in the USA in highly seismic regions, infill walls have a lower strength and stiffness than the boundary frames or they are separated from the boundary frames. Thus, the previously mentioned assumptions may be reasonable. However, these systems are not usually employed in most other countries. Therefore, the differences in the seismic behaviors of RC buildings with/without masonry infill walls, which are ignored in structural design, need to be investigated. In this study, structural analyses were performed for a masonry infilled low-rise RC moment-resisting frame. The infill walls were modeled as equivalent diagonal struts. The seismic behaviors of the RC moment-resisting frame with/without masonry infill walls were evaluated. From the analytical results, masonry infill walls can increase the global strength and stiffness of a structure. Consequently, the interstory drift ratio will decrease but seismic forces applied to the structure will increase more than the design seismic load because the natural period of the structure decreases. Partial damage of the infill walls by the floor causes vertical irregularity of the strength and stiffness.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.789-830
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• 2015

The recent re-assessment of the seismic hazard in Europe led for many regions of low to moderate seismicity to an increase in the seismic demand. As a consequence, several modern unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings, constructed with reinforced concrete (RC) slabs that provide an efficient rigid diaphragm action, no longer satisfy the seismic design check and have been retrofitted by adding or replacing URM walls with RC walls. Of late, also several new construction projects have been conceived directly as buildings with both RC and URM walls. Despite the widespread use of such construction technique, very little is known about the seismic behaviour of mixed RC-URM wall structures and codes do not provide adequate support to designers. The aim of the paper is therefore to propose a displacement-based design methodology for the design of mixed RC-URM edifices and the retrofit of URM buildings by replacing or adding selected URM walls with RC ones. The article describes also two tools developed for estimating important quantities relevant for the displacement-based design of structures with both RC and URM walls. The tools are (i) a mechanical model based on the shear-flexure interaction between URM and RC walls and (ii) an elastic model for estimating the contribution of the RC slabs to the overturning moment capacity of the system. In the last part of the article the proposed design method is verified through nonlinear dynamic analyses of several case studies. These results show that the proposed design approach has the ability of controlling the displacement profile of the designed structures, avoiding concentration of deformations in one single storey, a typical feature of URM wall structures.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.361-377
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• 2012

Four Reinforced Concrete (RC) single span structural walls having various opening sizes and locations were constructed and tested under lateral reversed cyclic loading at the structural laboratory of Kyoto University. These specimens were scaled to 40% and represented the lower three stories of a six-storied RC building. The main purposes of the experimental tests were to evaluate the shear behavior and to identify the influence of opening ratios on the cracks distribution and shear strength of RC structural walls. The shear strength of the specimens was estimated by combining the shear strength of structural wall without openings and the reduction factor that takes into account the openings. Experimental and analytical results showed that the shear strength was different depending on the loading direction due to opening locations. A two-dimensional finite element analysis was carried out to simulate the performance of the tested specimens. The constructed finite elements model simulated the lateral load-drift angle relations quite well.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2006.04a
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• pp.898-905
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• 2006

In the present paper, for a quantitative assessment of early-age cracking in an RC wall, an improved analytical model is proposed. First of all, a three-dimensional finite element model for the analysis of stresses due to hydration heat and differential drying shrinkage is introduced. A discrete steel element derived using the equivalent nodal force concept is used to simulate reinforcing steels, embedded in a concrete matrix. In advance, to quantitatively calculate the cracking potential, an analytical model that can estimate the post-cracking behavior in an RC tension member is proposed Subsequent comparisons. of analytical results with test results verify that the combined use of both the finite element model for the stress analysis as well as the analytical model for the estimation of the post-cracking behavior in an RC tension member make it possible to accurately predict the cracking ,behavior of RC walls.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.57 no.4
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• pp.641-656
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• 2016

Reinforced concrete frame buildings with masonry infill walls are one of the most popular structural systems in the world. In most cases, the effects of masonry infill walls are not considered in structural models. The results of earthquakes show that infill walls have a significant effect on the seismic response of buildings. In some cases, the buildings collapsed as a result of the formation of a soft story. This study developed a simple method, called corner opening, by replacing the corner of infill walls with a very flexible material to enhance the structural behavior of walls. To evaluate the proposed method a series of experiments were conducted on masonry infill wall and reinforced concrete frames with and without corner openings. Two 1:4 scale masonry infill walls with and without corner openings were tested under diagonal tension or shear strength and two RC frames with full infill walls and with corner opening infill walls were tested under monotonic horizontal loading up to a drift level of 2.5%. The experimental results revealed that the proposed method reduced the strength of infill wall specimens but considerably enhanced the ductility of infill wall specimens in the diagonal tension test. Moreover, the corner opening in infill walls prevented the slid shear failure of the infill wall in RC frames with infill walls.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.116-124
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• 2011

RC frames with unreinforced masonry infiledl walls are common in worldwide. Since infilled walls are normally considered as non-structural elements, their presence is often ignored by engineers. In this study, to improve the seismic performance of masonry walls, hexagonal block was developed and the influence of masonry infilled wall on the seismic performance of reinforced concrete(RC) frames that were designed in accordance with current code provisions without the consideration of earthquake loadings are investigated. Two 1/2 scale, single story, single bay, frame specimens were tested. The parameters investigated included that the strength of infilled wallls with respect to that of the lateral load history. The experimental results indicate that infilled walls can significantly improve the lateral stiffness and strength of RC frames. The lateral loads developed by the infilled frame specimen is higher than that of the bare frame. It also indicates that infilled walls can be potentially used to improve the performance of existing nonductile frames. For this purpose. methods should be developed to avoid irreparable damage and catastrophic failure.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.78 no.4
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• pp.455-471
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• 2021

The present work focuses on experimental and numerical performance of the ferrocement RC walls reinforced with welded steel mesh, expanded steel mesh, fiber glass mesh and tensar mesh individually. The experimental program comprised twelve RC walls having the dimensions of 450 mm×100 mm×1000 mm under concentric compression loadings. The studied variables are the type of reinforcing materials, the number of mesh layers and volume fraction of reinforcement. The main aim is to assess the influence of engaging the new inventive materials in reinforcing the composite RC walls. Non-linear finite element analysis; (NLFEA) was carried out to simulate the behavior of the composite walls employing ANSYS-10.0 Software. Parametric study is also demonstrated to check out the variables that can mainly influence the mechanical behavior of the model such as the change of wall dimensions. The obtained numerical results indicated the acceptable accuracy of FE simulations in the estimation of experimental values. In addition, the strength gained of specimens reinforced with welded steel mesh was higher by amount 40% compared with those reinforced with expanded steel mesh. Ferrocement specimens tested under axial compression loadings exhibit superior ultimate loads and energy absorbing capacity compared to the conventional reinforced concrete one.