SHEARWALLS - AN ANSWER FOR SEISMIC RESISTANCE?

The highlights are presented of observations of the behavior of buildings containing shearwalls in the earthquakes of the last 30 years. The earthquakes discussed here include the following: Chile (1960); Skopje, Yugoslavia (1963); Caracas, Venezuela (1967); San Fernando, California (1971); Managua, Nicaragua (1972); Bucharest, Romania (1977); Mexico City (1985); Chile (1985); and Armenia (1988). During these earthquakes, buildings containing shearwalls exhibited extremely good earthquake performance. In most cases, the shearwalls were reinforced in the traditional manner for gravity and overturning, without consideration to special details for ductility, as required in recent U.S. codes. Investigatitons of the behavior of modern structures in a dozen earthquakes throughout the world since 1963, has not revealed a single concrete building containing shearwalls that has collapsed.