Failure mechanism of shear-wall dominant multi-story buildings

Abstract

The recent trend in the building industry of Turkey as well as in many European countries is towards utilizing the tunnel form (shear-wall dominant) construction system for development of multi-story residential units. The tunnel form buildings diverge from other conventional reinforced concrete (RC) buildings due to the lack of beams and columns in their structural integrity. The vertical load-carrying members of these buildings are the structural-walls only, and the floor system is a flat plate. Besides the constructive advantages, tunnel form buildings provide superior seismic performance compared to conventional RC frame and dual systems as observed during the recent devastating earthquakes in Turkey (1999 M w 7.4 Kocaeli, M w 7.2 Duzce, and 2004 M w 6.5 Bingol). With its proven earthquake performance, the tunnel form system is becoming the primary construction technique in many seismically active regions. In this study, a series of nonlinear analyses were conducted using finite element (FE) models to augment our understanding on their failure mechanism under lateral forces. In order to represent the nonlinear behavior adequately, The FE models were verified with the results of experimental studies performed on three dimensional (3D) scaled tunnel form building specimens. The results of this study indicate that the structural walls of tunnel form buildings may exhibit brittle flexural failure under lateral loading, if they are not properly reinforced. The global tension/compression couple triggers this failure mechanism by creating pure axial tension in the outermost shear-walls.

Structural Behavior of Lightly Reinforced Shear Walls of Tunnel Form Buildings

“…All the vertical members are made of shear walls and floor system is flat plate. These structures utilize all wall elements as primary load (wind and seismic as well as gravity) carrying members and vertical and lateral loads are distributed homogeneously to the foundation [3].…”

“…All the vertical members are made of shear walls and floor system is flat plate. These structures utilize all wall elements as primary load (wind and seismic as well as gravity) carrying members and vertical and lateral loads are distributed homogeneously to the foundation [3].In tunnel form construction, in situ concrete is poured into two half-tunnel forms to form shear walls and floor slabs simultaneously. When this process is repeated, usually in a Manuscript received May 24, 2013; revised July 10, 2013.…”

Soil‐structure interaction effects on the fundamental periods of the shear‐wall dominant buildings

“…The non‐structural components such as facade walls, stairs, landings and partition walls are frequently built with prefabricated elements to expedite the construction. The superiority of the tunnel‐form buildings over their conventional counterparts stems from the considerable speed and economy in their construction, and from their enhanced earthquake resistance provided by the widespread use of the shear walls in the plan (Yuksel and Kalkan, 2007, 2008; Kalkan and Yuksel, 2008). For these reasons, the majority of multi‐unit housing, single‐family residences, high‐rise apartment buildings, hotels, townhouses and warehouses recently constructed in many European, Middle Eastern and Asian countries utilized the tunnel form system.…”