1 Department of Structural Engineering, Ain Shams University, Cairo. Egypt.
2 Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering. Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA. USA.
ABSTRACT
Introducing openings in masonry shear walls reduces their flexural and shear strength and alters their response to lateral loads. A research program was conducted at Drexel University to study the lateral ,response of shear walls with openings through testing thirteen 1/3-scale reinforced concrete masonry shear walls. In this study. a simple analysis approach employing plastic hinge failure mechanism was used to predict failure mechanism, lateral lo_ad carrying capacity, and internal forces at ultimate load. The test specimens were designed to behave mainly in a flexural mode by forming plastic hinges at the member ends (i.e. enough shear reinforcement was provided to suppress shear failure in different wall elements). In this paper, the results of only five walls are presented. The main parameters are size and location of door openings. The walls behaved mainly in a flexural mode as intended and failed by forming plastic hinges at the members ends. The test results showed that while the opening size has a significant effect on wall strength and stiffness of shear walls. the location of the opening has a minor effect on wall response. Through the test results in this study, it has been demonstrated that the plastic hinge mode! provides a simple and efficient analysis approach to predict the failure mechanism. ultimate strength and internal forces for flexural-dominated masonry shear walls with openings.
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