Plastic hinge length and inelastic rotational capacity of reinforced concrete shear walls detailed with Self-Centering reinforcement

The application of damage-resisting reinforced concrete (RC) shear walls is a novel topic in structural engi-neering. In recent years, more studies have been performed on the response of damage-resisting RC shear walls. These studies were mainly conducted on one-story specimens with limited ranges of dimension, reinforcement ratio, and axial load ratio. Furthermore, the studies were mostly aimed at the performance parameters of damage-resisting walls and overlooked the seismic design parameters, such as the plastic hinge length and in-elastic rotational capacity, of the walls.This paper presents a parametric finite element analysis study on the plastic hinge length and inelastic rotational capacity of three types of damage-resisting RC shear walls with improved self-centering properties under cylic lateral loads. The studied walls were reinforced with conventional steel bars and a type of self-centering reinforcement consisting of shape memory alloy (SMA) bars, glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) bars, and post-tensioned high-strength steel strands. The study showed that the plastic hinge length was com-parable in partially post-tensioned walls and conventional steel-reinforced RC walls, while the plastic hinge was longer in steel-GFRP reinforced walls and shorter in steel-SMA reinforced walls with respect to conventional steel-reinforced RC walls. It was also shown that the inelastic rotational capacity was comparable in partially post-tensioned and conventional RC walls, while the inelastic rotational capacity was larger in steel-GFRP reinforced walls and slightly smaller in steel-SMA reinforced walls with respect to conventional steel-reinforced RC shear walls.This paper also offeres a method to adapt the plastic hinge length and inelastic rotational capacity formulas of CSA and ACI standards for the seismic design of the studied steel-GFRP reinforced, steel-SMA reinforced, and partially post-tensioned RC shear walls.