Effective stiffness of concrete shear walls based on statistical analysis.

A review of current studies in concrete shear walls shows considerable uncertainty in the effective stiffness of these elements. Based on statistical analyses of 154 existing experiments on slender and squat walls, this paper proposes relations to determine the effective stiffness. Linear regression analyses are applied to determine the relationship between effective stiffness parameters such as axial load, reinforcement ratio, and aspect ratio. The results show the axial load plays a major role in the effective stiffness of the slender wall with correlation coefficient of 0.81. While, in case of squat shear walls, the axial load and the aspect ratio of the wall are the most significant parameters with correlation coefficient of 0.75 and 0.65, respectively. Finally, 2 relations are suggested for the effective stiffness of the slender and squat shear walls by linear regression analyses and are compared with the existing relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]