Numerical study on flexural strengthening of squat RC shear wall using FRP laminates

Shear wall has been widely used in RC structures due to its high initial stiffness and lateral load capacity. Hence, the behavior and effectiveness of retrofitting technique on shear wall are needed to be investigated widely. In this paper, a numerical analysis was performed using LS-DYNA finite element program to predict the behavior of squat RC shear wall strengthened by fiber reinforced polymer in flexure. The strengthening scheme was conducted by externally bonding vertical layers of FRP on each side of the wall and anchoring them at the wall base with a structural steel angle bolted to the support. Numerical results were validated against experimental data. Then, the influences of number of FRP layers, anchorage system, percentage of horizontal web reinforcement, percentage of vertical web reinforcement and percentage of vertical reinforcement in the boundary element were investigated. The results showed that the scheme can significantly improve the behavior of the RC shear wall. In addition, the behavior of strengthened wall and strengthening scheme strongly depend on the amount of web reinforcement which can also change the failure mode. (C) 2015 Sharif University of Technology. All rights reserved.