Decoupling and analysis of the deformation of flanged reinforced concrete shear walls

Summary Compared with rectangular walls, a relatively large proportion of shear deformations are expected for flanged walls due to their larger flexural capacity. As few well‐documented experimental data are available to assess the attributes of the various deformation components of flanged walls, the feasibility of using established models to predict the deformation capacity of flanged walls is debatable. This study presents experimental results for three large‐scale T‐shaped reinforced concrete walls under cyclic loading to examine the relative contributions of flexural, shear, and sliding deformations to lateral displacement. By using a high‐precision and noninterference measurement method based on particle image velocimetry, the deformation components were decoupled to investigate the variation in each deformation component with the total deformation corresponding to the damage evolution process. For flexure‐dominant T‐shaped walls, the ratio of shear‐to‐total deformations in the plastic hinge region slowly increases over the entire plastic range, whereas the ratio of shear‐to‐total top displacements remains approximately constant. When predicting the deformation capacity of flanged walls, shear deformations but not the contribution of sliding deformations should be considered. Based on the proportional relationship between shear strain and curvature, a simple model for estimating the shear deformations of flexure‐dominant flanged walls is proposed.