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Assessment of the seismic capacity of tall wall buildings using nonlinear finite element modeling

Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering volume 17, pages 6565–6589 (2019)Cite this article

Abstract

Two existing RC shear wall buildings of 17 and 26 stories were analyzed using fully nonlinear finite element models, i.e., models that include nonlinear material behavior and geometric nonlinearities. The buildings are located in Santiago, Chile and are representative of Chilean residential buildings in the sense that they have a large number of shear walls. The buildings withstood undamaged the 2010 Chile earthquake even though they were subjected to demands much larger than the code-specified demand. The approach to model the RC shear walls was validated through comparisons with results experimentally obtained from cyclic static tests conducted on isolated wall specimens. Several pushover analyses were performed to assess the global response of the buildings under seismic actions and to evaluate the influence of several modeling issues. Response history analyses were performed considering a ground motion recorded in Santiago during the 2010 Chile earthquake. In general, results (in terms of both global and local response quantities) are consistent with results given by pushover analysis and with the empirically observed lack of damage, a consistency that was not found in a previous study that considered linearly elastic models. The tangential inter-story drift deformation was found to correlate much better with the lack of observable damage than the total inter-story drift deformation typically considered in practice. The analysis also revealed that foundation uplift is possible but does not seem to significantly influence the response. Other modeling issues that were found to deserve further research are the shear stiffness of the walls and the influence of the slabs.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to VMB Structural Engineering (Santiago, Chile) for providing information on the buildings analyzed in this paper and valuable comments on the Chilean structural engineering practice. The first author’s doctoral studies were financially supported by the Chilean National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICYT) through the CONICYT-PCHA/Doctorado Nacional/2015-21151184 scholarship. Further support was provided by the National Research Center for Integrated Natural Disaster Management (CIGIDEN) CONICYT FONDAP 15110017. This support is gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Structural & Geotechnical Engineering, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Santiago, Chile

    David Ugalde & Diego Lopez-Garcia

  2. Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Santiago, Chile

    Pablo F. Parra

  3. National Research Center for Integrated Natural Disaster Management (CIGIDEN) CONICYT FONDAP 15110017, Santiago, Chile

    Diego Lopez-Garcia

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  1. David Ugalde
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  2. Pablo F. Parra
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  3. Diego Lopez-Garcia
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Correspondence to Diego Lopez-Garcia.

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Ugalde, D., Parra, P.F. & Lopez-Garcia, D. Assessment of the seismic capacity of tall wall buildings using nonlinear finite element modeling. Bull Earthquake Eng 17, 6565–6589 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10518-019-00644-x

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Keywords

  • Shear walls
  • Shear wall buildings
  • Shear wall models
  • Seismic response
  • 2010 Chile earthquake