Investigating the Arrangement of Rebars on the Ductility of Concrete Shear Wall with FEM Simulation

The structural system of a concrete bending frame is common in most seismic areas and is sometimes combined with braces or shear walls. Iran is considered an earthquake-prone country in the world, where shear walls are widely used in concrete structures. Shear walls are considered to be one of the main earthquake-resistant members in concrete buildings; therefore, the actual performance and behavior of these walls are of interest to engineers and designers. In this study, the effect of rebar arrangement on the ductility of concrete shear walls was investigated by simulating finite elements using Abaqus software. For this purpose, the models made by considering different angles of reinforcement in two cases of short and long concrete shear walls with a height of 2.5 and 4.5 meters, respectively, were modeled and analyzed under bearing load and seven earthquake records. The results showed that when comparing the ductility, stiffness, and bearing capacity for short and long concrete shear wall models with different reinforcement angles up to 75 °, there is a decreasing trend, and adding diagonal reinforcements to the model increases the ductility, stiffness, and bearing capacity. In addition, under the bearing load, the highest von Mises stress occurred at the foot of the shear wall, and in the case of earthquake records, the side areas and corners of the concrete shear wall had the highest von Mises stress. In the case of the stress contour for short walls with 15°, 45 °, and 90 °reinforcement angles under a drift load of 1%, it was observed that with an increase in the reinforcement angle, the stress value in the wall first increased and then decreased. In the case of the stress contour for the short walls with reinforcement angles of 15 °, 45 °, and 90 °under a drift load of 2%, the amount of stress in the wall increased with an increase in the angle of the reinforcement.