Investigating the seismic behavior of RC shear walls with openings strengthened with FRP sheets using different schemes

This paper investigates the seismic behavior of RC shear walls strengthened by Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) composites. In this research, the effects of strengthening shear walls with different strengthening schemes and also strengthening walls with openings in different dimensions and locations are studied. The development of nonlinear finite-element methods has improved the accuracy of seismic analysis of complex structures. In this study, the ABAQUS software is used to investigate the final resisting parameters, ductility, and behavior factor in these walls using nonlinear static analysis. The findings prove that the applied strengthening schemes increase the final strength of the wall. Also, the increasing ductility, behavior factor, and increased overstrength factor in some of these walls compared with original walls are observed. The findings also prove that special openings with limited dimensions to improve seismic behavior of the wall are effective, and the only limitation of using these openings is decreasing the final strength which can be made up by using a proper strengthening scheme of FRP. © 2017 Sharif University of Technology. All rights reserved.