Behavior under lateral cyclical load of thin reinforced concrete walls of the industrialized system

Reinforced concrete wall buildings of the industrialized system widely used in Colombia for housing construction in recent years present particular characteristics that make them a research subject. The reduced thicknesses of their walls that give rise to high slenderness ratios, the use of nonductile reinforcement arranged in a single curtain, and the absence or low level of confinement at the ends of the walls are some of the most relevant characteristics. This article presents the results of five quasi-static cyclical tests of thin-reinforced concrete walls (TRCW) on a full-scale, which are representative of the industrialized system. Wall properties were selected from a database of 136 existing buildings. These specimens were built with different cross-sections, lengths, and reinforcement contents at the ends. The experimental results confirm the importance of the properties and amount of web reinforcement and the effect of the use of properly confined boundary elements. The observed response and analysis of the experimental database of TRCW suggest that some walls could present a limited displacement capacity compared to the maximum drifts allowed by the design code.