Seismic Capacity Design and Retrofit of Reinforced Concrete Staggered Wall Structures

This study investigates the seismic performance of a staggered wall structure designed with conventional strength based design, and compares it with the performance of the structure designed by capacity design procedure which ensures strong column-weak beam concept. Then the seismic reinforcement schemes such as addition of interior columns or insertion of rotational friction dampers at the ends of connecting beams are validated by comparing their seismic performances with those of the standard model structure. Fragility analysis shows that the probability to reach the dynamic instability is highest in the strength designed structure and is lowest in the structure with friction dampers. It is also observed that, at least for the specific model structures considered in this study, R factor of 5.0 can be used in the seismic design of staggered wall structures with proposed retrofit schemes, while R factor of 3.0 may be reasonable for standard staggered wall structures.