Load Capacity of Slender High-Strength Concrete Walls with Side Supports

Reinforced concrete wall panels are commonly used as load-bearing structural elements. Rectangular concrete panels with side restraints are used as shear or bearing walls in buildings. They can also be found in components of box girder bridges and structural elements in the hulls of floating concrete structures such as concrete barges and pontoons. With the advent of high-strength concrete and through the use of precasting with greater quality control in fabrication, it is now possible to produce thin and slender concrete walls. These walls, however, are susceptible to buckling. Reinforced concrete walls simply supported along side edges and subjected to eccentric loading were tested and evaluated in this study. The supports on the side edges forced the walls to maintain zero deflection along the side edges. This paper reports test results of eight high-strength concrete walls of 2 m (6.56 ft) long, 1.5 m (4.92 ft) wide, and 50 mm (1.95 in) thick. The test parameters investigated were reinforcement ratios of 0.85% and 1.69%, eccentricities of 25 mm (0.984 in) and 8 mm (0.312 in), and concrete compressive strengths varying from 50 MPa (7,250 psi) to 96 MPa (13,920 psi). Typical crack patterns of the specimens, failure modes, and load-deflection characteristics are reported. The failure modes are similar to the classical two-way buckling of plates, but the walls also exhibited a torsional failure mode near the corners. Comparison of the test results with estimations based on previous research work are also presented. The results presented will be useful in calibrating and refining analytical models.