Experimental study on a new type of earthquake resilient shear wall

Reinforced concrete (RC) shear walls have been extensively used as lateral load resisting structural members in tall buildings. However, in the past, strong earthquake events RC structural walls in some buildings suffered severe damage, which concentrated at the bottom and was very difficult to be repaired. The installation of the replaceable corner components (RCCs) at the bottom of the structural wall is a new method to form an earthquake resilient structural wall whose function can be quickly restored by replacing the RCCs after the strong earthquake because of the damage concentrating on RCCs. In this study, a new kind of replaceable energy-dissipation component installed at the bottom corner of RC structural walls was proposed. To study the seismic performance of the new structural wall with RCCs, the cyclic loading tests on three new structural wall specimens and one conventional RC structural wall specimen were conducted. One of the new structural wall specimens experienced replacement and reloading process to verify the feasibility of replacement. The results show that the structural behavior of all specimens was flexure dominating. The damage in the new shear specimens mainly concentrated on RCCs. The replacement of RCCs can be implemented conveniently after the residual deformation occurred in the structure. Compared with the conventional structural wall specimen, the seismic performance of new structural wall specimens was improved significantly. Copyright (C) 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.