Behaviour of Shearwalls with Slabs and Openings

Generally because of the economic advantage and stable behavior in seismic loading, shearwalls combined with coupling slabs are widely used in high-rise apartment buildings. When analyzing such structures for lateral loads, however, the question of the actual stiffness and strength of the coupling slabs arises. For more accurate analysis approach, an experimental investigation was conducted with half-scale representations of the reinforced concrete shearwalls with the opening and coupled with slabs were subjected to cyclic loads. The test results of opening installed specimen, severe decrease of strength was observed. The decrease of strength of the shear walls by installation of openings shows a great deal of difference compared to previous researches. This is because flexural capacity of the slabs is working as coupling elements for the shear walls. The critical section of coupling slabs that works as coupling elements for shear walls was a little different from the results of previous researches.