Hysteretic performance of reinforced concrete cavity shear walls

Abstract Cavity shear wall, as a kind of precast wall with internal cavity, is divided into strong and weak areas. It is hoped that the structure stiffness, lateral load capacity, and ductility could be better matched in the cavity shear wall. Therefore, the quasi‐static tests were carried out to study the hysteretic performance of reinforced concrete cavity shear walls. Test results indicated that the regular squat shear wall's failure mode is dominated by shear and the setting of the cavity can effectively reduce the stiffness and lateral load capacity. The cavity makes the development and distribution of cracks in the sidewalls more uniform and finer, which is more conducive to energy dissipation. The rational match of the stiffness, lateral load capacity, and ductility can be achieved by arranging reasonable cavity in the shear wall. The purpose of improving the ductility and optimizing the failure mode of shear wall can also be achieved by relaxing the constraints of the bottom of the shear wall or setting several cavities. In addition, the multilayer shell model was adopted to simulate the specimens and parametric analysis was also carried out. The verification shows that the numerical model can predict the lateral responses of the cavity shear wall with reasonable accuracy. The parametric analysis shows that the initial stiffness and peak load of the shear wall would be reduced if there is cavity or horizontal seam at the bottom. However, the ductility could be improved if the cavity or horizontal seam is arranged in a reasonable combination. The influence of cavity and horizontal seam on the strain arch leads to the change of lateral capacity and response.