Reinforced concrete shear walls as seismic force resisting systems may experience inelastic deformations if subjected to strong seismic excitations. These walls are designed to provide strength, stiffness, energy dissipation capacity and lateral drift control for seismic resistance. Shear wall deformability is largely dependent on adequate confinement of core concrete in boundary elements, prevention of longitudinal bar buckling, as well as proper design and detailing of the web section. Conventional transverse reinforcement placed in shear wall boundary elements consists of hoops, overlapping hoops and crossties, based on the geometry and number of longitudinal bars used. The confinement steel requirement of current building codes (ACI 318 or CSA A23.3) often results in congestion of steel cage due to the high transverse reinforcement ratio required. Placing multiple hoops with 135-degree bends combined with crossties to satisfy the code confinement requirements can create concrete placement and construction problems. In addition, the required time to assemble conventional steel cages with multiple individual ties per spacing can be time consuming, potentially impacting the overall cost and duration of construction. Welded Wire Reinforcement (WWR) is available in the construction industry as concrete reinforcement in the form of welded wire fabric (WWF) manufactured from relatively small diameter wires in comparison to the bar sizes typically used in structural applications. As an alternative to using conventional transverse hoops, prefabricated WWR grids can be used to provide required transverse reinforcement in boundary elements. WWR grids are manufactured using robots to weld cut steel pieces accurately before they are shipped to the job site, resulting in better construction quality and reduced construction time. However, research on the use of WWR is limited in the literature. Further experimental and analytical research is needed to establish design requirements for such reinforcement, especially when used in earthquake resistant construction with requirements for ductile response. The current research project, involved three main phases; i) tests of 3 large-scale reinforced concrete shear walls with WWR grids used as boundary element transverse reinforcement, ii) material tests of grid samples, including those cast in concrete, iii) non-linear finite element analysis. The wall tests were conducted under slowly-applied lateral deformation reversals to investigate their strength and ductility for suitability as seismic resistant structural elements. Material tests were conducted to have a better understanding of WWR behavior, especially their weld capacity. Analytical research was undertaken to expand the experimental findings on shear wall behavior, as well as to conduct parametric investigation to understand the impact of changes in grid strength and ductility. The results indicated that WWR grids can be used as boundary element transverse reinforcement in earthquake resistant shear wall. However, strength and ductility of grids should be established carefully prior to such application. Design strength of WWR grids should be established through burst tests to ensure ductile yielding of wire reinforcement prior to premature weld failure. Those grids that exhibit weld failures may be used with reduced design strength to permit the development of sufficient inelastic deformability in flexure-dominant shear walls.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the inelastic action in the reinforced concrete frame-wall structures analytically and with that analysis to follow the plastic formation of the structure. For this purpose, six mid-rise reinforced concrete buildings with frame-wall are modeled and analyzed to understand the effect of the height and base shear force ratio of the wall on the nonlinear interaction between reinforced concrete wall and frame members under static lateral loads and ground motion excitations. The parametric analysis is conducted by assuming planar response of the buildings under loadings. The buildings are generated considering the limit design concept suggested by Turkish Earthquake Code 2007 and Turkish Standards TS500, and the frame-wall members are modeled by using spread plasticity elements and fiber discretization of sections. In the analysis stage, each element section is divided into confined and unconfined regions for detailed modeling of the building by using OpenSEES nonlinear finite element program. Two dimensional analyses are conducted under static and dynamic loadings. For static pushover analyses, three different lateral load cases (Triangular, Uniform and First-Mode Lateral Load Patterns) are considered. For dynamic analyses, eight different ground motions are used. These ground motions are scaled to the corresponding design response spectrum suggested by Turkish Earthquake Code 2007 by using RSPMATCH program. Using the result of the complex and simplified analyses, inter-story drift ratios, plastic rotations and internal force distributions of the buildings are investigated.

La plupart des bâtiments de moyenne et grande hauteur en béton armé sont munis de murs de refend ductiles afin résister aux charges latérales dues au vent et aux séismes. Les murs de refend ductiles sont conçus selon des règles conception stricts. Ces murs sont généralement conçus de façon à forcer la formation d’une rotule plastique à leur base dans l’éventualité d’un séismemajeur. Lors de la conception d’un mur, l’enveloppe des moments fléchissants ainsi que l’enveloppe des efforts tranchants dans la portion du mur situé au-dessus de la rotule plastique sont basés sur la résistance probable en flexion du mur dans la région de la rotule plastique. Plusieurs études sur les murs de refend conçus selon cette philosophie de conception on fait le constat que l’effort tranchant maximum dans un mur peut être sous-estimé lors d’un séisme, et que des rotules plastiques peuvent également se former à d’autres endroits qu’à la base du mur, ce qui constitue un mécanisme de ruine indésirable. Ces effets sont principalement attribuables à la contribution des modes supérieures à la réponse dynamique globale des bâtiments lors d’un séisme. L’effet des modes supérieurs est particulièrement important dans les bâtiments élancés de grande hauteur ayant une période propre de vibration longue. L’essai pseudo-dynamique avec sous-structure est uneméthode efficace et économique d’évaluer expérimentalement l’effet des modes supérieurs sur le comportement sismique des murs de refend dans les bâtiments. Lors de tels essais, comme la masse du bâtiment est modélisée numériquement, ceci permet de tester des structures à de relativement grandes échelles sans avoir à combattremécaniquement les forces d’inerties générées lors d’un séisme. Dans le cadre de la présente étude, la portion constituant la base d’un mur de refend correspondant à la zone de rotule plastique faisant partie d’un bâtiment de huit étages à l’échelle 1/2,75 a été testé. Les dimensions générales de la portion de mur testée étaient de 1800 mm de longueur, par 2200 mm de hauteur par 160 mm d’épaisseur. Le mur étudié a été conçu selon l’édition 2015 du Code National du Bâtiment du Canada (CNBC 2015) ainsi que selon la norme CSA A23.3-14 (Calcul des ouvrages en béton), où le facteur d’amplification de l’effort tranchant causé par l’effet des modes supérieurs n’a pas été pris en compte. Lors des essais pseudo-dynamiques avec sous-structure, une nouvelle méthode de contrôle à trois degrés de liberté convenant à des spécimens d’essai très rigides axialement a été développée et validée. Une procédure novatrice de redémarrage d’un essai interrompu en cours de route a également été développée et validée. Lors des essais, le bâtiment de huit étages incluant la portion de mur dans le laboratoire a été soumis à trois séismes. Le premier séisme était de très faible intensité, l’intensité du deuxième séisme correspondait au séisme de conception, et le troisième séisme correspondait au séisme de conception dont l’intensité a été doublé. Durant les deux séismes de forte intensité, le mur testé s’est comporté de manière ductile et des fissures de cisaillement et de flexion importantes ont été observées. Même si l’effort tranchant maximum mesuré durant le séisme de conception a atteint 2,16 fois la valeur de conception du mur, et 3,01 fois la valeur de conception du mur dans le cas du séisme amplifié, aucun mécanisme de ruine n’a été observé. Suite aux essais pseudo-dynamiques avec sous-structure, un essai par poussée progressive a également été effectué. Les résultats des essais pseudo-dynamiques avec sous-structure portent à croire que la valeur de l’effort tranchant de conception d’un mur selon la norme CSA A23.3-14 est sous-estimé. De plus, l’essai poussée progressive a permis de démontrer que lemur était beaucoup plus résistant qu’anticipé, puisque l’effort tranchant avait été sous-estimé lors de la conception. L’essai par poussée progressive a également permis de démontrer que le mur peut atteindre des niveaux de ductilité en déplacement supérieur à celui prévu par la norme CSA A23.3-14. / Abstract: Most mid- and high-rise reinforced concrete (RC) buildings rely on RC structural walls as their seismic force resisting system. Ductile RC structural walls (commonly called shear walls) designed according to modern building codes are typically detailed to undergo plastic hinging at their base. Both the design moment envelope for the remaining portion of the wall and the design shear forces are evaluated based on the probable flexural resistance of the wall in the plastic hinge region. Several analytical studies have shown that so-designed structural walls can be subjected to shear forces in excess of the design values. Plastic hinging can also develop in the upper portion of the walls. These effects are mainly attributed to higher mode response and, hence, are more severe in taller or slender walls with long fundamental periods. Considering the literature, there is a significant uncertainty regarding the behavior of the structural walls under the higher mode of vibrations excited under earthquake excitations. Hybrid testing is an effective experimentalmethod to study the natural behaviour of structures such as shear walls. The hybrid testing method enables the simulation of the seismic response of large structural elements like RC shear walls without the need to include large masses typically encountered in multi-storey buildings. In this study a barbell shaped RC shear wall specimen of 1800mm in length including a 300mm × 300mm boundary element at each end that is 2200mm in height, and 160mm thick was investigated. A test specimen corresponding to the base plastic hinge zone of an 8-storey shear wall was tested in a laboratory evolvement whilst the reminder of the building structure was modeled numerically. The reference wall was scaled down by a factor of 1/2.75 to obtain dimensions of the test specimen. The RC wall was designed in accordance with the 2015 edition of the National Building Code of Canada (NBCC 2015) and the Canadian Standard Association A23.3-14 code. The amplification of the base design shear force accounting for the inelastic effects of higher modes specified by the CSAA23.3-14 standard was not taken into account in order to evaluate the amplification experimentally. In order to investigate the response of ductile RC walls under earthquake ground motions and track the effect of the higher vibration modes on the shear force demand, three earthquakes with different intensities were applied on the hybrid model successively. The RC wall exhibited a ductile behaviour under the ground motions and flexural and shear cracks developed all over the height of the wall. In spite of amplifying the shear force demand by a factor of 2.16 under the design level earthquake and 3.01 under a high intensity earthquake, no shear failure was observed. The test results indicated that the amplification of the design shear forces at the base of ductile RC shear walls are underestimated by the CSAA23.3-14 standard. A new method for controlling three degrees of freedomin hybrid simulation of the earthquake response of stiff specimens was developed and verified in this study. Also, an innovative procedure to restore an interrupted hybrid test was programmed and verified. The hybrid tests were followed by a push-over test under a lateral force distribution equal to the square root of sum of the squares of the first five modes in order to evaluate the displacement ductility of the RC wall. Findings of the final push-over test showed that the tested ductile RC wall can withstand higher displacement ductilities than the presented levels in the NBCC 2015.