Structural Behavior of Lightly Reinforced Shear Walls of Tunnel Form Buildings

Abstract—The tunnel-form system has become a primary construction technique in building industry of Turkey as well as in many European countries. In these buildings, all the vertical load-carrying members are made of shear-walls, and floor system is flat plate. Both gravity and lateral loads are transferred to shear-walls. Despite their frequent applications, there is lack of experimental studies to understand the response of the shear walls of tunnel form buildings under extreme lateral loading conditions. In this study, experimental investigation on the inelastic seismic behavior of the shear walls of tunnel form buildings (i.e., box-type or panel systems) is presented. The test was carried out on full-scale rectangular shear wall specimen. The experimental program involves static testing of shear walls having mesh reinforcements under increasing lateral monotonic loading of shear wall specimen. The experimental results indicate that lightly reinforced structural walls of tunnel form buildings may exhibit brittle flexural failure under seismic action. This failure mechanism is of particular interest in emphasizing the mode of failure that is not routinely considered during seismic design of shear-wall dominant structural systems. This type of failure takes place due to rupturing of longitudinal reinforcement without crushing of concrete, therefore is of particular interest in emphasizing the mode of failure that is not routinely considered during seismic design of shear-wall dominant structural systems.