Abstract: To investigate the damage mechanism and seismic behavior of reinforced concrete core walls subjected to earthquake actions from different directions, a low cycle loading test with different loading directions of two reinforced concrete core walls specimens are carried out. The failure mode, interlaminar hysteretic behavior, energy dissipation capacity, wall section strain, bearing capacity, deformation performance, ductility and intensity attenuation of core walls are investigated. The test results indicate that the loading direction has an effect on the seismic performance, and also determines the failure mode of core walls; when the loading action direction increases from 0#x000b0; to 45#x000b0;, the damage of a core walls specimen is more fully, four shear walls are damaged. The spatial effect of shear walls is obvious; the force mode changes; the horizontal bearing capacity and base moment of RC core walls increase but displacement ductility reduce; and the maximum inter-story displacement of the specimens change little.