Investigation of the Effect of openings in RC Shear Walls on Seismic Performance

Abstract

Providing an opening with the shear wall as the building's functional necessity such as door and window openings can have a significant impact on its behavior. Therefore, this work is going to investigate the effect of reinforced concrete shear wall with openings on the seismic performance. To identify the effect of the opening size on reinforced concrete shear wall, different shear wall models are created by providing different opening area, and analysis has been performed. Therefore, the critical opening area has been found. Some of the shear wall models been provided the critical opening area, and the opening is moved both horizontally and vertically, the story shear, and story drift caused by earthquake loading has been found to be the same result when the opening is 2m x 1m meter. The investigation of the impact of the opening on the shear wall is done, a finite element analysis was carried out to compare the results. The results of the analysis on base shear, story displacement, and story stiffness are compared with the percentage of the opening size and the location of the opening. As well as the principal stresses at the corners of the opening are compared. Finally, the opening affects the lateral stiffness of the reinforced concrete shear wall, the further the opening area continues to rise the rigidity of the story is reduced. Thus, there is a linear relation between the stiffness of the story and the percentage of the opening size.