Experimental testing of nonductile reinforced concrete wall boundary elements

This paper presents an overview and results of a recent experimental testing program of nonductile reinforced concrete (RC) wall boundary elements. The experimental program consisted of 17 boundary element prism specimens that are meant to represent the end regions of nonductile RC walls. The failure mechanisms of interest were global out‐of‐plane buckling and local bar buckling of the vertical reinforcement. The matrix of test specimens included: high and low slenderness ratios (that is, height-to-thickness ratio); cast-in‐place and precast wall construction methods; and specimens that were detailed with either a single central layer of vertical reinforcement or two layers of vertical reinforcement, one per face. Strain-rate affects were also assessed in the experimental program. The paper concludes with a detailed discussion of the test results, comparisons with similar experimental programs and design models in literature, and guidance on tensile strain limits for the displacement-based design of nonductile RC walls.