Abstract:
Although the strain based damage limits proposed in the existing Turkish Earthquake Code were adopted from reported studies of leading researchers, the appropriateness of these limit state definitions and corresponding values to evaluate the performance with the analytical tools and methods used in the displacement based design and assessment procedures has not been verified properly. The moment-curvature analysis based on the plane section hypothesis is severely violated especially for reinforced concrete walls. This indicates that a comprehensive investigation is required to investigate the validity of proposed damage limits for structural walls. This study is based on advanced and computationally rigorous numerical procedures to investigate the relation between drift ratio, plastic rotation and curvature, compressive strain in concrete and tensile strain in steel for rectangular reinforced concrete structural walls. Validity of the requirements related to deformation limits in the Turkish Seismic Code and other design guidelines is then evaluated. Modeling and acceptance criteria that are more accurate than the existing ones have been proposed for structural walls.