Seismic Design of RC Structural Walls. Part I: New Code Format

A displacement-based analytical procedure is used to develop a new code format for the seismic design of reinforced concrete shear walls. The procedure, which can be applied to walls of various cross-sectional shapes, uses a computed strain distribution to determine requirements for transverse reinforcement at wall boundaries for concrete confinement and to restrain buckling of reinforcement. Based on the computed strain distribution, both detailed and simplified approaches are presented to determine the amount and distribution of required transverse reinforcement. Simplified approaches are developed for symmetrically reinforced walls with axial load less than 0.10\iA\i\dw\if′\i\dc and for unsymmetrically reinforced walls with axial load less than 0.05\iA\i\dw\if′\i\dc. In addition, requirements for distribution of flexural strength over the height of the wall and limiting values for shear stress are also suggested. The proposed code format would increase design flexibility and could be incorporated into existing code formats.