Design for earthquake-resistant reinforced concrete structural walls

The work presented is concerned with the application of the compressive force path (CFP) method for the design of earthquake resistant reinforced concrete structural walls. It is based on a comparative study of the results obtained from tests on structural walls under cyclic loading mimicking seismic action. Of the walls tested, half have been designed in accordance with the CFP method and the remainder in accordance with the provisions of euro-codes 2 and 8. The results obtained show that both methods of design adopted lead to solutions which satisfy the requirements of current codes for structural performance in all cases investigated. Moreover, the solutions obtained from the application of the CFP method result in a significant reduction of the amount of stirrup reinforcement placed at the critical lengths of the walls’ vertical edges. In fact, such reinforcement is not specified by the latter method for the case of walls with a span-to-depth ratio smaller than 2.5; for the case of walls with a shear span-to-depth ratio larger than 2.5, not only is it placed over a length which is considerably smaller, but also its spacing is significantly larger, than the code specified values.