Engineering Structures 100 (2015) 356368

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Engineering Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/engstruct

Strength and drift capacity of squat recycled concrete shear walls under
cyclic loading
Youkai Peng a, Hui Wu a, Yan Zhuge b,
a
Beijing Higher Institution Engineering Research Center of Civil Engineering Structure and Renewable Material, Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Beijing
100044, China
b
School of Civil Engineering and Surveying, University of Southern Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 28 February 2014
Revised 12 June 2015
Accepted 15 June 2015
Available online 26 June 2015
Keywords:
Shear wall
Squat wall
Recycled concrete
Cyclic loading
Drift capacity
Strength

a b s t r a c t
In order to provide an improved understanding of the behavior of squat reinforced concrete shear walls
and promote the application of recycled concrete in structures, six rectangular squat recycled concrete
wall specimens were tested under in-plane cyclic loading. The specimens were designed based on
Chinese code for design of concrete structures GB 50010-2010, which specied minimum horizontal
and vertical reinforcement ratios of 0.25% in web, and vertical reinforcement ratio of 1.0% in boundary
element. The main parameters investigated are axial load level and the amount of vertical and horizontal
web reinforcement. This research presents the experimental results which include test observation, lateral load versus drift response, and measured strain distribution of vertical and horizontal reinforcement,
measured strength and drift capacity of wall specimens. It was found that increasing of axial load level
resulted in a higher peak load but less ultimate drift capacity, and increasing of horizontal web reinforcement had small effect on peak load but could improve the drift capacity. In this study, a mixed exure and
diagonal compression mechanism was proposed to reect the lateral load resisting behavior of squat
walls. Particularly, a simplied analytical method was developed to predict the peak loads of squat walls
failed in exure or a mixed exuraldiagonal compression mode, which was proved to accurately predict
the peak loads of specimens.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Recycled concrete is prepared by partially replacing the natural
aggregate in mix proportion by recycled aggregate which is the
product of construction and demolition concrete waste. It provides
a sustainable way of both preserving natural aggregate and solving
the pollution problem. At present in China, with the rapid development of construction industry, shortage of resources is becoming
an urgent matter. At the same time, billion tons of construction
waste is generated each year. The traditional disposal method of
landll or dumping will have fatal impact on environment, recycling and reuse of the huge amount of the construction waste
becomes an inevitable choice and is attracting more research activities in the area.
Studies on the structural performance of using recycled concrete have been carried out in the past decade [14]. Letelier
et al. [1] investigated the seismic behavior of recycled concrete

Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 7 34704711; fax: +61 7 34704129.

E-mail address: yan.zhuge@usq.edu.au (Y. Zhuge).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2015.06.025
0141-0296/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

beamcolumn joints under cyclic loading. Xiao et al. investigated

the seismic behavior of plane frame under cyclic loading and conducted a shaking table test of a 1/4-scale recycled concrete frame
[2]. Their testing results indicated that it was feasible to use recycled concrete in reinforced concrete structures. More recently, the
exural behavior of reinforced concrete beams that use recycled
concrete aggregates were studied by Arezoumandi et al. [3]. They
found out that recycled concrete aggregates beams have comparable ultimate exural strength and approximately 13% higher
deection corresponding to the ultimate exural strength of the
conventional concrete. Although a large amount of experimental
research has been conducted, additional studies should be performed to further the knowledge and use of recycled concrete in
reinforced concrete building structures, especially laboratory testing on large-scale recycled concrete specimens. Previous study [4]
carried out by the authors on the seismic behavior of full-scale
recycled concrete columns indicated that recycled concrete specimens exhibited more brittle characteristic than normal concrete
specimen. In order to meet the requirements of seismic design, it
is suggested that the seismic behavior of recycled concrete members must be carefully studied.

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Y. Peng et al. / Engineering Structures 100 (2015) 356368

Squat reinforced concrete shear walls with a height hw to length

lw ratio of less than 2 are commonly used in low-rise buildings
because they show good performance in lateral load resistance
and drift control. Since the 1950s, many research projects have
been carried out in order to understand the behavior of squat reinforced concrete walls under monotonic or simulated earthquake
loading. Some of them are shown in Refs. [515]. When shear walls
are used in the lateral force resisting system, it is highly desirable
that they are designed to exhibit a ductile behavior which means
supplying sufcient shear strength to favor a exural yielding
[7,8]. However, for a squat wall, the behavior is dominated by a
shear response or mixed modes of exure and shear. Although a
relatively large number of wall tests are reported in the literature
[7], there is a signicant uncertainty to predict the squat wall
behavior. This is due to the following factors: wall specimens experienced different failure modes (exure, shear and sliding shear)
and the interaction between each failure mode was not well
dened; different parameters (e.g., material strength, geometry
of wall cross section, amount and distribution of reinforcement)
were used which resulted in different formulas; and small-scale
specimens used may not reect the real behavior of full-scale
walls. Consequently, the deign equations derived from the experimental data probably give least predictable behavior of squat walls
[15].
Currently, there is still a lack of studies on the behavior of
large-scale squat recycled concrete walls. In this study, six
large-scale rectangular squat recycled concrete wall specimens
with a height to length ratio of 0.89 were designed and tested
under quasi-static cyclic loading. This research aimed at providing
an improved understanding of squat recycled concrete shear walls
and giving design suggestions. The principal research objectives
are: (1) the lateral load-transferring mechanism and failure modes
of squat recycled concrete shear walls; (2) the peak load and its
prediction method; (3) drift capacity; (4) the effect of vertical
and horizontal web reinforcement; and (5) the adequacy of current
detailing requirements for design of recycled concrete walls.

[16], as shown in Table 1. The main variables are axial load level,
the amount of vertical and horizontal web reinforcement. All
specimens have a length of 1800 mm and a height of 1600 mm
(hw/lw = 0.89), and a thickness bw of 180 mm. The height from wall
base to the action point of lateral loading (H) is 1800 mm. The
length of boundary element lc is 360 mm, which is two times the
thickness or 20% of the overall length of wall specimen. The details
of specimens are illustrated in Fig. 1.
The boundary element of all specimens was vertically reinforced with six hot rolled ribbed bars D14 (diameter = 14 mm),
constituting a longitudinal reinforcement ratio q of 1.4%; and
transversely reinforced with hot rolled plain bars D10 (diameter = 10 mm) hoops and ties spaced at 75 mm (D10@75). The
details in boundary element meet the requirements of Chinese
code. Hot rolled plain bars D8 (diameter = 8 mm) spaced at
180 mm (D8@180) were used as the vertical web reinforcement
of specimens RCSW-1 through RCSW-4, and hot rolled plain bars
D10 spaced at 135 mm (D10@135) were used as the vertical web
reinforcement of specimens RCSW-5 and RCSW-6, constituting
vertical web reinforcement ratios qv of 0.310% (minimum requirement 0.25%) and 0.646%, respectively. The horizontal web reinforcement ratio qh varies from 0.186% to 0.873%. Specimens
RCSW-1 through RCSW-6 were horizontally reinforced in web
region by D10@100, D10@150, D10@150, D10@300, D8@150 and
D8@300, respectively. In order to prevent a premature sliding
shear failure at wall base, four hot rolled ribbed bars D14 with a
length of 700 mm were added as dowel reinforcement for all specimens. The length of the dowel bars extended into the foundation
and into the wall section was 400 mm and 300 mm, respectively.
The axial load ratio of specimens RCSW-1, RCSW-3 and RCSW-4

2100

300
B
Top beam
450

Lateral load

250

2. Research signicance
This study presents the experimental results of six large-scale
squat recycled concrete shear walls under cyclic loading. It can
be used as reference for engineering practice and development of
design guidelines. Especially, the proposed mixed exure and diagonal compression mechanism is quite suitable for explaining the
lateral load resisting behavior of squat walls with boundary elements, and the simple analytical method for predicting the peak
loads will be useful for the rational design of squat walls.

1800

1600
Dowel
Reinforcement
4D14

1800

Foundation beam
(length 3500)
Web

Boundary
element

3. Experimental program

400
500

B
180

360

3.1. Specimen design

Six rectangular squat wall specimens were designed based on
Chinese code for design of concrete structures GB 50010-2010

1080
1800
A-A

B-B

360
All dimensions are in mm

Fig. 1. Details of specimens.

Table 1
Parameters of specimens.
Specimen

hw (mm)

lw (mm)

lc (mm)

bw (mm)

fcu (MPa)

fc (MPa)

ft (MPa)

q (%)

qv (%)

qh (%)

N (kN)

N/(Acfc)

RCSW-1
RCSW-2
RCSW-3
RCSW-4
RCSW-5
RCSW-6

1600
1600
1600
1600
1600
1600

1800
1800
1800
1800
1800
1800

360
360
360
360
360
360

180
180
180
180
180
180

50.3
50.3
51.9
51.0
53.4
49.3

42.0
42.0
43.2
42.5
44.0
46.7

2.26
2.26
2.16
2.16
2.16
2.16

1.4
1.4
1.4
1.4
1.4
1.4

0.310
0.310
0.310
0.310
0.646
0.646

0.873
0.582
0.582
0.291
0.372
0.186

1792
870
1818
1791

0.13
0.06
0.13
0.13

Note: fcu = average compressive strength of three 150 mm cubs; fc = average compressive strength of three 150 mm  300 mm prisms; ft = splitting tensile strength; N = axial
load; N/(Acfc) = axial load ratio; Ac = lwbw.

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Y. Peng et al. / Engineering Structures 100 (2015) 356368

was 0.13 while that of specimen RCSW-2 was 0.064, and the axial
load was not applied for specimens RCSW-5 and RCSW-6.
In ACI 318 code [17], if hw/lw dose not exceed 2.0, it is required
that the vertical web reinforcement ratio shall not be less than the
horizontal web reinforcement ratio. This is mainly based on the
observation that in long and low shear walls, the vertical web reinforcement will be more effective in restraining the inclined cracks,
especially for walls with hw/lw less than 0.5. In this study, specimens RCSW-4 through RCSW-6 satisfy the requirement. For specimens RCSW-1 through RCSW-3, the amount of horizontal web
reinforcement is more than that of vertical web reinforcement.
They were designed to investigate the benecial effect of horizontal web reinforcement on drift capacity. To attain nearly the same
exural strength of specimens with similar axial load, the amount
of vertical web reinforcement was kept constant for RCSW-1,
RCSW-3 and RCSW-4 (0.310%), and for RCSW-5 and RCSW-6
(0.646%), respectively.
3.2. Materials
The mix proportions per m3 of recycled concrete were 170 kg
water, 290 kg cement, 392 kg natural coarse aggregate, 308 kg natural ne aggregate, 588 kg recycled coarse aggregate, 462 kg recycled ne aggregate, 91 kg ay ash, 82 kg mineral powder, and
18.5 kg pumping agent. The recycled aggregate was produced
properly and supplied by a local production line. The average compressive and tensile strength of recycled concrete tested on the day
of cyclic testing are shown in Table 1. The mechanical properties of
reinforcement are show in Table 2 and stressstrain curves shown
in Fig. 2.
3.3. Theoretical strengths and predicted failure modes
The average shear stress V/(lwbw) achieved by walls is closely
related to their failure mechanisms, where V is the applied shear
force. In the design applications, exural failure is preferred since
it is ductile and easy to predict the peak load with satisfactory
accuracy. However, the squat shear walls are prone to fail in a
mixed exureshear or shear mode. Three typical shear failure
modes were summarized by Paulay et al. [8], namely, diagonal tension, diagonal compression and sliding shear failure. Diagonal tension failure, characterized by a corner to corner cracking, often
occurs when insufcient horizontal reinforcement is provided.
Adding horizontal reinforcement can prevent diagonal tension failure and lead to diagonal compression failure, characterized by
crushing of concrete struts near the base of the wall. This type of
failure is common in walls with stiff boundary elements or with
a high axial load. It usually attains a high shear stress. Sliding shear
failure differs from diagonal tension or compression, characterized
by resisting shear force by aggregate interlock in the compression
zone and dowel action of the vertical reinforcement at base section. It occurs in walls with adequate horizontal reinforcement to
prevent diagonal tension failure, with low axial loads and no stiff
boundary elements so that diagonal compression failure would
be avoided, or in walls with light vertical reinforcement. Since
shear failures are brittle in nature, walls or other members are

Table 2
Mechanical properties of reinforcement.
Type
D8
D10
D14

fy (MPa)
398
363
477

fu (MPa)
518
482
628

Fig. 2. Stressstrain curves of reinforcement.

designed to have shear strengths higher than their exural

strengths to suppress shear failures in seismic design.
The calculation of exural strength is based on the plane sections assumption which is applicable to exure-dominant members. Thus, the assumption will not apply to the squat walls
because their shear deformations are expected to be considerable.
Even so, the ideal and ultimate exural strength (Vif and Vuf) of wall
specimens were calculated for comparison. The predicted exural
strengths according to Chinese code GB 50010 are shown in
Table 3. The formulae for the calculation of Vif and Vuf are shown
in Eqs. (1) and (2), where V represents Vif or Vuf. The strain limit
of concrete in compression is 0.0033 and the tensile stress of concrete is not considered. The only difference between Vif and Vuf is
that the latter takes into account of the strain-hardening of
reinforcement.

N a1 f c bw x

 0
 X
A0si f si  f c 
Asi f si

VH N0:5lw  0:5x

Asi f si di  0:5x 

2.1  10
2.1  105
2.0  105

ey (106)
1895
1729
2385

Note: fy is the yield stress; fu is the ultimate stress; Es is the modulus of elasticity; ey
is the yield strain.

A0si f si di  0:5x
2

where x = b1xn is the depth of the equivalent rectangular stress

block, xn is the actual depth of compression zone, a1 and b1 are
the coefcients of rectangular stress block (taken as 1.0 and 0.8
0
for normal strength concrete, respectively), Asi is the area of bar i
0
in compression zone, fsi is the stress of compression bar i (positive
in compression), Asi is the area of bar i in tension zone, fsi is the
stress of tension bar i (positive in tension), di is the distance from
the extreme compression ber to the centroid of bar i. In calculation
0
of Vif, it is assumed that fsi and fsi equal to the yield stress of vertical
reinforcement (Table 2). However, in calculation of Vuf, the stresses
0
fsi and fsi are obtained from the testing stressstrain curves of reinforcement (Fig. 2). For example, the strain of the outermost bar in
tension in RCSW-1 is 0.012 and the corresponding stress is
592 MPa.
Due to the uncertainty of shear strength of walls, design codes
often give a lower bound prediction to estimate the shear strength
conservatively. In Chinese code GB 50010 [16], the peak shear
strength of shear walls (hw/lw 6 1.5) can be simplied as Eq. (3).

V GB50010 0:5f t bw h0 0:13N f y

Es (MPa)

Ash
h0
s

where h0 is the effective depth of cross section (taken as the distance from the center of boundary element in tension to the
extreme compressive ber of concrete), N is axial load which is no
more than 0.2fcbwlw, fy is the yield stress of horizontal web reinforcement, and Ash is the total cross-sectional area of horizontal
web reinforcement within the spacing s. In ACI 318 code [17], the

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Y. Peng et al. / Engineering Structures 100 (2015) 356368

Table 3
Calculated strengths and failure modes.
Specimen

Vif (kN)

Vuf (kN)

RCSW-1
RCSW-2
RCSW-3
RCSW-4
RCSW-5
RCSW-6

1200
867
1215
1203
614
616

1279
984
1294
1282
753
753

Diagonal tension
strength (kN)

Diagonal compression strength (kN)

Sliding shear strength (kN)

VGB50010

VACI318

VBarda

VPark

1486
1058
1167
856
747
531

1552
1209
1217
870
1017
793

1626
1418
1644
1631
1633
1660

2157
1235
2183
2156
833
833

VWood (kN)

1050
1050
1065
1056
1075
1107

Failure mode
Predicted

Tests

F
F
F-DT
DT
F
F

F-DC
F-SL
F-DC
DT
F
F/DC

Note: F exural; DT diagonal tension; DC diagonal compression; SL sliding shear; F/DC exural failure in the negative direction, diagonal compression in the positive
direction.

peak shear strength for seismic design of walls (hw/lw 6 1.5) is a

combination of the contribution of concrete and horizontal reinforcement, as shown in Eq. (4), and the benecial effect of axial load
is not considered.



q
0
V ACI318 0:25 f c qh f y lw bw

where fc (in MPa) is the specied compression strength of concrete

(cylinder strength), which is equal to prism strength fc in this study
(the small difference between them is ignored). Eqs. (3) and (4)
assume a diagonal failure plane inclined as 45 and yielding of all
horizontal web reinforcement across the failure plane. In the prediction of failure modes, the maximum value of Eqs. (3) and (4)
was regarded as a potential diagonal tension resistance of shear
walls. To estimate the potential diagonal compression strength of
wall specimens, the equation suggested by Barda et al. [6] was used.
The Barda et al. equation was derived based on the test results of
eight squat walls with heavily reinforced anges. Since diagonal
compression failure occurred in Bardas study, it is reasonable to
use the equation to predict the diagonal compression strength of
squat walls for research purpose. Additionally, the equation suggested by Park and Paulay [18] was used to predict the sliding shear
strength of shear walls, which is shown in Eq. (5).

V Park N Av f y N qv lw bw f y

where Av is the total cross-sectional area of vertical reinforcement

in web and boundary elements, which is taken as qvlwbw so that
the contribution of heavy reinforcement in the boundary elements
could not be overestimated, qv is the vertical web reinforcement
ratio, and fy is the yield stress of web reinforcement. Moreover,
the shear strength predicted by Wood [19] which was based on
the testing results of 143 specimens was also calculated.
As shown in Table 3, based on the calculated exural and shear
strengths, all specimens except RCSW-4 could achieve the ideal
exural strength. It was predicted that exural failure would occur
in RCSW-1, RCSW-2, RCSW-5 and RCSW-6, critical exuraldiagonal tension failure would occur in RCSW-3, and diagonal tension
failure would occur in RCSW-4. However, for squat walls with
boundary elements, a signicant portion of lateral load introduced
at the top of a cantilever wall could be transmitted directly to the
wall base by compressive struts, thus the lateral load resistance
would be the combined contribution of exural and diagonal compression mechanisms and probably be lower or higher than the
exural strength of the critical section (evidenced by the results
of this study). Since the relative contributions of the lateral load
resisting mechanisms are unknown, the peak loads and actual failure modes are hard to predict accurately.

3.4. Construction
The specimens were constructed at the structural laboratory of
Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture. For each
wall the foundation beam was cast by normal concrete rst.
Then the wall together with the top beam was cast vertically by
recycled concrete. After casting of walls, the specimens were cured
at least 28 days before testing. The foundation beam and top beam
were designed to be elastic in loading process and sufciently stiff
to bear and transfer forces with negligible deformation.
3.5. Test setup
Fig. 3 shows the test setup. The specimen was stressed to the
strong oor and horizontally restrained to prevent rocking and
sliding. The lateral load was applied by a horizontal actuator with
a capacity of 2000 kN. The axial load was applied vertically by a
loading system which included two hydraulic jacks with a total
capacity of 4000 kN, a stiff steel beam for transferring forces, two
post-tension bolts, and two hinged connections. Additionally, a
steel beam was placed on the top of wall specimen to make sure
that the axial load was applied uniformly to the wall.
3.6. Instrumentation
The applied lateral and vertical loads were monitored by load
cells. A series of linear variable displacement transducers (LVDTs)
were used to measure the deformation. As shown in Fig. 4, the
top displacement at the application point of lateral load was measured by a 250 mm stroke LVDT. Moreover, three LVDTs on each
side of the specimen and two LVDTs in diagonal directions were
installed for measuring the exural and shear deformation respectively, and a LVDT was installed at the foundation beam to measure
the sliding displacement of the specimen. As shown in Fig.5, electrical resistance strain gages (3 mm length) were mounted on the
vertical and horizontal reinforcement to monitor the steel strain
during testing. The selected locations of stain gauges of RCSW-2
through RCSW-4 and RCSW-6 were same as those of RCSW-1
and RCSW-5, respectively.
3.7. Loading procedure
The axial load remained constant when the specimen was
tested under cyclic lateral load. In order to prevent unexpected
sudden shear failure in the loading process, force control was taken
with the increasing amplitude of 100 kN, and each target load was
applied once before the minimum of 0.75Vif and VGB50010 (shear
strength based on Chinese code) was achieved. After that, displacement control was conducted. The target displacement or drift (displacement divided by wall height) was 1, 1.5, 2, . . . times the
displacement or drift corresponding to the minimum of 0.75Vif

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Y. Peng et al. / Engineering Structures 100 (2015) 356368

Hydraulic jack

Stiff steel beam

Negative Positive
Actuator

Steel beam
Post-tension
bolt

Specimen
Reaction wall

Hinged
connection

Strong floor

(a) front view

(b) side view

Fig. 3. Test setup.

Fig. 4. Instrumentation of wall specimen.

and VGB50010. For each target displacement or drift, three cycles

were applied.
4. Experimental results
4.1. RCSW-5 and RCSW-6: no axial load
Specimen RCSW-5 and RCSW-6 were designed to reect the
behavior of squat recycled concrete shear walls without axial
loads. They had same vertical web reinforcement (0.646%) but
different horizontal web reinforcement. The horizontal web
reinforcement of RCSW-6 (0.186%) was one half of that of
RCSW-5(0.372%).

Vertical:
D8@180

Strain
gauge

In the test of RCSW-6, several short cracks formed in the lower

half of the boundary element at the end of the 300 kN cycle. In the
0.3% drift cycle, the short cracks developed into the web region
obviously. In the following loading stages, inclined cracks
increased and climbed along the height of the specimen. In the
1.29% drift cycle, the peak load was achieved. The crack pattern
of RCSW-6 at peak load is shown in Fig. 6(f), it was observed that
the cover concrete at the toes of the specimen was slightly damaged and web concrete was divided into many compressive struts.
An ultimate drift of +2.93% (corresponding to 85% of the peak load,
namely, failure load) was achieved in the positive direction, and
the loss of load-carrying capacity was caused by the degradation
of compressive struts. However, a lower ultimate drift of 2.54%
was achieved in the negative direction, and the loss of
load-carrying capacity was caused by crushing of concrete in the
left boundary element (Fig.7(f)). The lateral load versus drift
response of RCSW-6 is shown in Fig. 8(f). It should be noticed that
the asymmetry of peak load and the degradation trend of
load-carrying capacity is obvious. In the positive direction, a peak
load of +592 kN was achieved which was only 79% of the calculated
ultimate exural strength, and in the negative direction, the calculated ultimate exural strength (753 kN) was achieved. This could
be a consequence of different controlling mechanism which
occurred in two directions. Since exural failure occurred in negative direction and diagonal compression failure occurred in positive direction (Table 3), two controlling mechanisms would result
in different capacity. In this test, the specimen was not symmetrically loaded in two loading directions due to unexpected horizontal sliding of the footing beam. Based on the test observation and
measured vertical strain distribution of vertical reinforcement
across the base section, it was found that the depth of compression

Vertical:
D10@135

Strain
gauge

300mm

300mm

(b) RCSW-5

(a) RCSW-1
Fig. 5. Measured strain gauges.

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Y. Peng et al. / Engineering Structures 100 (2015) 356368

(a) RCSW-1

(d) RCSW-4

(b) RCSW-2

(c) RCSW-3

(e) RCSW-5

(f) RCSW-6

Fig. 6. Crack patterns of specimens at peak load.

(a) RCSW-1

(d) RCSW-4

(b) RCSW-2

(e) RCSW-5
Fig. 7. Crack patterns of specimens at failure load.

(c) RCSW-3

(f) RCSW-6

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Y. Peng et al. / Engineering Structures 100 (2015) 356368

Fig. 8. Lateral load versus drift response: (a) RCSW-1; (b) RCSW-2; (c) RCSW-3; (d) RCSW-4; (e) RCSW-5; (f) RCSW-6.

zone in the positive direction was greatly larger than predicted,

thus a shorter force arm would also result in a lower moment
capacity.
Specimen RCSW-5 developed less cracks than RCSW-6 at the
end of 300 kN cycle due to larger amount of horizontal web reinforcement. A peak load of +675 kN and 698 kN was achieved at
+1.17% drift and 1.50% drift, respectively. The crack pattern at
peak load is shown in Fig. 6(e). Similar to RCSW-6, the calculated
ultimate exural strength of RCSW-5 was also not achieved.
However, there was also substantial yielding of vertical reinforcement in the web and boundary element. Obvious crushing of cover
concrete in left boundary element was observed in the 2.75% drift
cycle. After that, the load-carrying capacity in negative direction
decreased rapidly to failure load at 2.84% drift, but the specimen
still kept stable lateral load-carrying capacity in positive direction
until the spalling of web concrete (Fig. 7(e)) at +3.42% drift. As
shown in Fig. 8(e), it exhibited ductile behavior and could meet
the requirements of seismic design.

4.2. RCSW-2: axial load ratio 0.06

Specimen RCSW-2 was designed to reect the behavior of the
squat wall with a small axial load ratio. The horizontal cracking

initiated in the lower half of boundary elements during the

700 kN cycle. At the end of the 800 kN cycle, two cross inclined
cracks in web concrete were observed. A peak load of +1111 kN
and 1093 kN was achieved at +1.36% drift and 1.92% drift,
respectively. Different from specimen RCSW-5 and RCSW-6, the
peak load of RCSW-2 is higher than its calculated ultimate exural
strength. The crack pattern at peak load is shown in Fig. 6(b), ne
compressive struts and the crushing of concrete at the toes of the
specimen could be observed. The loss of load-carrying capacity
was caused by horizontal sliding shear in web at a height of
350 mm and crushing of boundary elements (Fig. 7(b)). The sliding
surface almost located at the end of dowel reinforcement. As
shown in Fig. 8(b), the specimen exhibited stable load-carrying
capacity until an average ultimate drift of 2.56% was achieved.

4.3. RCSW-1, RCSW-3 and RCSW-4: axial load ratio 0.13

Specimen RCSW-4 was lightly reinforced in horizontal direction
and diagonal tension failure was expected. Horizontal cracking initiated in the boundary elements during the 1000 kN cycle (0.2%
drift). Cross diagonal cracking occurred at 0.75% drift. A peak load
of +1492 kN and 1499 kN was achieved at +1.21% drift and 1.0%
drift, respectively. It is much higher than the predicted diagonal

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Y. Peng et al. / Engineering Structures 100 (2015) 356368

tension strength. The crack pattern at peak load is shown in

Fig. 6(d). The specimen failed suddenly due to the spalling and
crushing of boundary elements and the main diagonal cracks
developed to the wall base (Fig. 7(d)), only an ultimate drift of
1.455% was achieved (Fig. 8(d)).
Specimen RCSW-3 was designed with more horizontal web
reinforcement (0.582%) than that of RCSW-4 (0.291%). Horizontal
cracking initiated in the boundary elements during the 1000 kN
cycle (0.25% drift). A peak load of +1467 kN and 1570 kN was
achieved at +1.18% drift and 0.81% drift, respectively. As shown
in Fig. 6(c), vertical cracking in boundary elements could be
observed. In the following cycles, the cover concrete spalled gradually. The loss of lateral load-carrying capacity was caused by
boundary crushing and immediately followed web crushing (see
Fig. 7(c)). Compared with RCSW-4, an improved ultimate drift of
1.83% was achieved.
Specimen RCSW-1 had a horizontal web reinforcement ratio of
0.873%. Horizontal cracking was observed in the boundary elements during the 0.36% drift cycle. A peak load of +1529 kN and
1535 kN was achieved at +1.28% drift and 0.90% drift, respectively. As shown in Fig. 6(a), the increasing of horizontal web reinforcement resulted in ner compressive struts compared with the
specimens RCSW-3 and RCSW-4 with less horizontal web reinforcement. The lateral load-carrying capacity was lost due to compressive failure of boundary elements and spalling of web concrete
(Fig. 7(a)). Because of the brittle nature of diagonal compression
failure, its ultimate drift (1.92%) was not greatly improved compared with RCSW-3.
Test results of specimens are summarized in Table 4.
4.4. Measured wall strain distribution
As shown in Fig. 5, the strains of four vertical bars in boundary
elements and three vertical bars in web were monitored by strain
gauges at a height of zero (wall base section) and 300 mm. Five
horizontal bars located at a height of 50 mm, 350 mm, 650 mm,
950 mm and 1250 mm were selected to measure their strains.

For each horizontal bar, three strain gauges were installed at left,
middle and right respectively. The measured vertical and horizontal reinforcement strains of specimens at various drift levels are
shown in Figs. 916 (1le = 1  106). It can be observed that the
strain of vertical reinforcement varies linearly across the base section of the wall at small drift levels for all specimens. However, the
strain distribution of vertical reinforcement at base section does
not satisfy the plane sections assumption after the wall developed
obvious plastic deformations due to the yielding of reinforcement
and cracking or spalling of concrete, especially for specimens with
higher axial load ratio (such as RCSW-1). As evidenced in Fig. 9,
most of the vertical reinforcement of RCSW-1 (axial load ratio
0.13) yield or enter strain-hardening phase at +0.95% and 0.90%
drift (before the peak load was achieved). For specimen RCSW-5
without axial load, the strain distribution approximately keeps linear at +0.89% and 0.88% drift (Fig. 11). Even so, it is also found
that most of reinforcement in tension zone yield at the peak load.
For specimen RCSW-6, the depths of compression zone are different in two loading directions. As shown in Fig. 12, the depth is
more than 600 mm in positive direction at +0.51% drift, however,
it is about 300 mm in the negative direction at 0.59% drift. For
both RCSW-5 and RCSW-6 walls, the vertical strains in the boundary reinforcement appear to be relatively low and strain-hardening
is not obvious, therefore the stresses are much lower than the ultimate stress of reinforcement, which would result in a relatively
lower moment. This is consistent with that the peak load was
lower than the calculated ultimate exural strength.
The maximum value of strain gauges located at left, middle and
right (see Fig. 5) is taken as the representative strain of a horizontal
bar. As shown in Figs. 1316, the strains of horizontal reinforcement are very small at the initial drift levels for all specimens. As
the increasing of drift, the strains become larger. The horizontal
reinforcement of RCSW-1 and RCSW-5 did not yield when the
specimens achieved their peak loads. For other specimens, the
yielding of some horizontal reinforcements was observed at their
peak loads, but the yielding of all the horizontal reinforcements
was not measured, which was also observed in the studies of other

Table 4
Test results.
Specimen

Vpeak+ (kN)

Vpeak (kN)

Vpeak (kN)

Dpeak/H (%)

Du/H (%)

Vpeak/Vif

Vpeak/Vuf

p
Vpeak/(Ac fc)

RCSW-1
RCSW-2
RCSW-3
RCSW-4
RCSW-5
RCSW-6

1529
1111
1467
1492
675
592

1535
1093
1570
1499
698
753

1532
1102
1518
1495
686
672

1.090
1.641
0.996
1.114
1.336
1.266

1.915
2.555
1.833
1.455
3.132
2.738

1.28
1.27
1.25
1.24
1.12
1.09

1.20
1.12
1.17
1.17
0.91
0.89

0.73
0.52
0.71
0.71
0.32
0.30

(8.76)
(6.30)
(8.55)
(8.49)
(3.83)
(3.64)

Note: Vpeak is the average peak load of positive direction Vpeak+ and negative direction Vpeak; Dpeak is the average lateral top displacement corresponding to peak load; Du is the
lateral top displacement corresponding to 85% of the peak load (failure load); 0.73 and 8.76 are the results when the value of fc in MPa and fc in psi is used respectively.

(a) positive direction

(b) negative direction

Fig. 9. Measured vertical reinforcement strain across the base section of RCSW-1.

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Y. Peng et al. / Engineering Structures 100 (2015) 356368

(a) positive direction

(b) negative direction

Fig. 10. Measured vertical reinforcement strain across the base section of RCSW-2.

(a) positive direction

(b) negative direction

Fig. 11. Measured vertical reinforcement strain across the base section of RCSW-5.

(a) positive direction

(b) negative direction

Fig. 12. Measured vertical reinforcement strain across the base section of RCSW-6.

researchers [20,21]. In the post peak load stages, the strains

increase rapidly, and the maximum strain appears at a height of
350 mm or 650 mm (nearly one third of the total height).
4.5. Analysis of wall strength
As shown in Table 4, the comparison of average peak load Vpeak
with Vif indicates that all specimens achieved the ideal exural
strengths. Moreover, the ratio Vpeak/Vuf shows that RCSW-1 through
RCSW-4 achieved the peak loads higher than calculated ultimate
exural strengths, and RCSW-5 and RCSW-6 did not achieve their
ultimate exural strength. In order to give a better prediction of
the peak loads of squat walls in this study, a mixed exural and
diagonal compression mechanism is proposed as shown in
Fig. 17(a). It is assumed that the lateral load resistance is a contribution of exural mechanism (Vexural) and diagonal compression
mechanism (Vdiagonal) which can transfer loads directly to the

foundation. The two mechanisms illustrated in Fig. 17(b) and (c)

have the same compression zone. The ultimate condition is that
the crushing of extreme compression ber due to the contributions
of the two mechanisms. For simplicity, it is assumed that only the
compressive struts pointed into the compression zone are effective
in transferring lateral load. The analytical peak load (Vanalytical)
could be expressed as Eq. (6).

V analytical V flexural V diagonal

Then, the equilibrium of vertical forces at the base section gives

Eq. (7).

N V diagonal tan h a1 f c bw x

A0si f si  f c 

Asi f si

where h is the inclined angle of the effective compressive struts

(taken as 45 in this study), Vdiagonaltan h is the total vertical component of compressive force in effective compressive struts, x = b1xn is
the depth of the equivalent rectangular stress block, xn is actual

Y. Peng et al. / Engineering Structures 100 (2015) 356368

(a) positive direction

365

(b) negative direction

Fig. 13. Measured horizontal web reinforcement strain of RCSW-1.

(a) positive direction

(b) negative direction

Fig. 14. Measured horizontal web reinforcement strain of RCSW-2.

(a) positive direction

(b) negative direction

Fig. 15. Measured horizontal web reinforcement strain of RCSW-3.

(a) positive direction

(b) negative direction

Fig. 16. Measured horizontal web reinforcement strain of RCSW-5.

depth of compression zone, a1 and b1 are the coefcients of rectangular stress block (taken as 1.0 and 0.8, respectively), Asi is the area
of tension bar i, fsi is the stress of tension bar i (taken as the yield

stress), di is the distance from the extreme compression ber to

the centroid of tension bar i. Since the contribution of diagonal compression to the peak load (Vdiagonal) will not produce moment at the

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Y. Peng et al. / Engineering Structures 100 (2015) 356368

Effective
compressive
strut

Boundary element
in tension

Boundary element
in compression

Compressive
struts

Vdiagonal

Vflexural

di
Compression zone Asifsi
xn
Asi'fsi'
Stress
block

xn

Vdiagonal

Vflexural

Vdiagonal

Vflexuralhw

V Center line of
lateral load

Vflexural

Vdiagonal tan

si si

Vflexural

Base section

(a)

Base section

Vdiagonal tan

(b)

Vdiagonal

(c)

Fig. 17. Mechanisms of lateral load resistance: (a) mixed exure and diagonal compression mechanism; (b) exural mechanism; (c) diagonal compression mechanism.

center of rectangular stress block (Fig. 17c), the equilibrium of

moments at the center of rectangular stress block yields Eq. (8).

V flexural H  N0:5lw  0:5x

Asi f si di  0:5x
X 0 0

Asi f si di  0:5x

5.1. Application scope of mixed exure and diagonal compression

mechanism

Since the strain distribution of vertical reinforcement is not

known, the stress of vertical reinforcement in compression needs
to be assumed. In this study, the vertical reinforcement in com0
pression (Asi ) in Eq. (7) and Eq. (8) is ignored in the calculation.
P 0 0
For Eq. (8), the component Asi fsi (di  0.5x) is small since the vertical reinforcement in compression was symmetrical to the center
0
of compression zone in most cases. For Eq. (7), ignoring Asi will
have some effects on the results. According to the behavior of reinforced concrete beam sections with and without compression rein0
forcement under bending, ignoring Asi will give a relatively
conservative prediction of the ultimate load-carrying capacity.
The analytical results are shown in Table 5. Since it is not possible to get four unknowns through Eqs. 68, it is assumed that
Vanalytical equals Vpeak. Consequently, the compression zone x,
Vexural, Vdiagonal can be determined based on the tested peak loads.
It is shown that 1325% of peak load could be transferred by diagonal compression mechanism. Particularly, as it is shown in
Table 5, the lateral load resistance of exural mechanism for all
specimens is nearly 95% of the ideal exural strength, so that Eq.
(9) can be proposed.

V flexural 0:95V if

5. Discussions

Eq. (9) will be quite useful in the prediction of the peak load. If
the exural component Vexural is determined, the compression
zone x, Vdiagonal and Vanalytical can be obtained from Eqs. 68.

Due to the formation of compressive struts in web and frame

action of boundary elements, the diagonal compression mechanism will be effective in transferring lateral load to the foundation.
The mixed exural and diagonal compression mechanism
described above reasonably reects the lateral load resisting
behavior of specimens and accurately predicts the peak loads of
all specimens if the uniform contribution of 0.95Vif (exural mechanism) is assumed. Since the number of specimens tested is limited, the exural component of 0.95Vif may only be used for
similar walls to those in this study. However, the analytical
method applies to the squat walls failed in exure or in a mixed
exure and diagonal compression mode, characterized by yielding
of vertical reinforcement out of compression zone and crushing or
spalling of concrete in the boundary element. It is required that the
diagonal tension or sliding shear strengths calculated by design
equations are larger than the predicted loads by the proposed
model.

5.2. Indication for design of squat recycled concrete walls

The axial load level, amount of horizontal and vertical web reinforcement, and the details of boundary elements are regarded as
the main factors which affect the behavior of squat walls. As shown
in Table 4, the experimental results show that the increasing of
axial load level results in improvement of peak loads but decrease

Table 5
Analytical results.
Specimen

xn (mm)

x (mm)

h ()

Vexural (kN)

Vdiagonal (kN)

Vexural/Vif

Vexural/Vanalytical

Vdiagonal/Vanalytical

Vanalytical/Vpeak

RCSW-1
RCSW-2
RCSW-3
RCSW-4
RCSW-5
RCSW-6

466
294
453
454
172
160

373
235
362
363
138
128

45
45
45
45
45
45

1142
834
1159
1148
582
585

385
266
358
346
103
89

0.95
0.96
0.95
0.95
0.95
0.95

0.75
0.76
0.76
0.77
0.85
0.87

0.25
0.24
0.24
0.23
0.15
0.13

1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00

Y. Peng et al. / Engineering Structures 100 (2015) 356368

of drift capacities. It is shown that an ultimate drift of 1.92% correp

sponding to an average shear stress of 0.73 fc MPa can be achieved
by specimen RCSW-1 with sufcient horizontal web reinforcep
ment. However, the average shear stress may be less than 0.5 fc
MPa if an ultimate drift of more than 2.5% is expected.
The effect of vertical and horizontal web reinforcement was discussed in previous studies. Barda et al. [6] found that both of the
vertical and horizontal reinforcements were effective in producing
a more distributed crack pattern and in reducing crack width,
and suggested that minimum horizontal and vertical reinforcement should be provided for all walls. For the walls with
height-to-length ratio of 1.0, Cardenas et al. [22] reported that both
horizontal and vertical web reinforcements were effective in contributing to the shear strength. As shown in Table 4, for the squat
walls failed in exure or a mixed exure and shear mode, the comparison of the peak load and drift capacity of specimens RCSW-1,
RCSW-3 and RCSW-4 indicates that the increasing of horizontal
web reinforcement has a small effect on the peak load when the
vertical web reinforcement remains constant, however, it can
improve the drift capacity of specimens. Consequently, increasing
of horizontal web reinforcement could be an effective method in
order to gain a more ductile behavior. In this study, the amount
of vertical web reinforcement was not changed for the specimens
with the same axial load level, so that its effect on strength and
drift capacity was not investigated. The only design indication is
that the minimum requirement of vertical web reinforcement ratio
0.25% will not be adequate to resist sliding shear for the squat
walls with low axial load level, such as RCSW-2, RCSW-5 and
RCSW-6.

5.3. Equations for predicting the shear strengths of squat walls

The equations for predicting the shear strengths of squat walls
can be found in building codes, guidelines or literatures as
described in previous sections. Gulec et al. [23] found that the
equation proposed by Wood [19] resulted in a median ratio of
the predicted to measured strengths (of 120 rectangular walls)
close to 1.0 with a small coefcient of variation. In this study, the
shear strengths of specimens were calculated by equations in
codes and equations suggested by researchers as shown in
Table 3. Although the specimens tested failed in exure or a mixed
exure and shear mode, the comparison of the predicted shear
strength VGB50010 with the peak load Vpeak shows that Eq. (3) always
gives a conservative prediction. ACI 318 (Eq. (4)) gives a slightly
higher estimation of shear strength than Chinese code (Eq. (3)).
Since the benecial effect of boundary elements, the diagonal tension strength of specimen with little horizontal web reinforcement
such as RCSW-4 was greatly higher than that predicted by Chinese
code or ACI 318. The peak loads of specimens which failed in a
mixed exure and diagonal compression mode such as RCSW-1
and RCSW-3 are close to the predicted strength by Barda et al. It
is found that the Wood equation gives a conservative prediction
of the shear strength for the specimens with axial loads.
Additionally, Park equation was used to predict the sliding shear
strength of specimens. In this test, sliding shear failure only
occurred in RCSW-2 with a peak load of 1102 kN, which is 10%
lower than the predicted 1235 kN.

6. Conclusions
Based on the experimental study on six large-scale squat recycled concrete walls, ndings and conclusions may be summarized
as follows.

367

1. The peak loads and failure modes of wall specimens were not
accurately predicted by the existing formula. It is shown that
the experimental peak loads may be 10% lower or 20% higher
than the predicted ultimate exural strengths of squat walls
which are predicted to fail in exure.
2. In order to accurately predict the peak loads of squat walls, a
mixed exural and diagonal compression mechanism is proposed, which assumes that the lateral load resistance of squat
walls is a combined contribution of the exural mechanism
and diagonal compression mechanism. It is found that 1325%
of peak load can be directly transferred to the wall foundation
by diagonal compression according to the proposed analytical
method in this study.
3. The increasing of axial load level results in improvement of
peak loads but decrease of drift capacities. An ultimate drift of
p
1.92% corresponding to an average shear stress of 0.73 fc
MPa can be achieved by providing sufcient horizontal web
reinforcement. However, the average shear stress may be less
p
than 0.5 fc MPa if an ultimate drift of more than 2.5% is
expected.
4. The increasing of horizontal web reinforcement had small effect
on peak load when vertical web reinforcement remains constant but could improve the drift capacity.
5. The explicit calculation of diagonal tension, diagonal compression and sliding shear strength is recommended in the design
of squat walls. However, the suitable equations for predicting
the shear strengths of squat walls should be further compared
and investigated.

Acknowledgements
The research reported in this paper was funded by Beijing
Natural Science Fund (Grant No. 8091002). We would like to
thank two anonymous reviewers for their specic and helpful
suggestions.

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