Evaluation of Finite Element and Fiber Element RC Constitutive Models for Nonlinear Cyclic Analysis of a U Shaped Shear Wall

Abstract eng:
Reinforced concrete (RC) shear wall buildings are a very common type of construction worldwide. Nonlinear dynamic analyses of this type of structural systems are used more and more by the engineering profession in the context of performance based design or safety assessment of existing buildings designed using older codes/standards. Researchers are also working to improve advanced RC cyclic constitutive models especially under three dimensional (3D) excitations involving axial, moment, shear and torsional interactions. Several computer programs are available to perform nonlinear seismic analysis of reinforced concrete structures. Detailed solid finite elements (FE) models (i.e. ANSYS, ABAQUS) using built-in constitutive models are able to capture the local stress-strain responses, quantify low cycle fatigue, steel reinforcement bond slip in addition to the global force-displacement responses. These programs require the definition of several material parameters according to the constitutive model and failure envelope used (i.e. smeared vs discrete steel reinforcement, concrete confinement). Additional parameters to drive the nonlinear solution algorithms to convergence are also of major importance. FE models are also often used to calibrate the nonlinear stiffness and strength properties of fiber elements (i.e. OpenSees, SeismoStruct) that could be used in a computationally effective way to assess global nonlinear response of a complete building structures (i.e. formation of plastic hinges). The predictions of both FE and fiber elements models need to be compared to experimental data to validate their performance for both ductile (flexural) and brittle (shear) failure mechanisms. This study describes the developments of FE (ANSYS, ABAQUS) and fiber element (OpenSees, SeismoStruct, SAP2000) models of U shaped shear walls (2.72m high, 1.30m x 1.05m footprint and 100 mm thick) tested by other researchers under axial and reversed cyclic bi-directional flexural loading. Guidelines are provided for a proper definition of the FE and fiber elements modeling parameters using five different computer programs to satisfactorily reproduce the given experimental results, up to a drift percentage of 2.5%. The capabilities of the different models to predict failure mechanisms are also investigated. The advantages and limitations of the different computational tools are discussed. The results of this study are very useful for researchers and practitioners working in the field of seismic safety evaluation of RC shear wall buildings using predictive computational tools.

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