PEAK SHEAR STRENGTH OF H-SHAPED REINFORCED CONCRETE SQUAT WALLS

Flanged RC squat walls are widely used in conventional buildings and nuclear facilities owing to the significant lateral strength and stiffness in both principle directions. The building codes are found to have some problems in predicting the peak shear strength of flanged RC squat walls, such as insufficient parameters and the exclusion of the influence of the flanges. Moreover, calculated values are more discrete than experimental values. In this paper, we established a database of the comprehensive information of 152 flanged RC squat walls. The performance of popular building codes in predicting the peak shear strength of this kind of walls was compared and analyzed. Based on the crack patterns on the web, a model of flanged RC squat walls considering the influence of the flanges was built, based on which the equation for the peak shear strength was deduced. The results reveal that the proposed equation can calculate the peak shear strength of the shear walls in the database with a mean value of 1 and a small variation coefficient. These results can provide guidance for the design of structural walls and the revision of building codes.