Experimental study and FEM of RC shear walls with internal FRP reinforcement

Earthquakes claim thousands of lives around the world annually due to the poor design of lateral load resisting systems, mainly shear walls. Additionally, corrosion of the steel reinforcement in concrete structures is one of the main challenges in the construction industry. Fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) reinforcement can be used as an alternative to traditional steel reinforcement. FRP has several excellent mechanical properties than steel, such as high resistance to corrosion, high tensile strength, light self-weight and electromagnetic neutrality. This thesis is about the result of experimental research incorporating testing of medium-scale concrete shear wall samples; reinforced with Basalt-FRP (BFRP), Glass-FRP (GFRP), and steel bars as a control sample. The samples are tested under quasi-static-cyclic loading following the modified ATC-24 protocol for seismic loading. The results of the samples are compared to allow a judgment about the performance of BFRP/GFRP reinforced in comparison with the conventional steel-reinforced concrete shear wall (RCSW). The results of the conducted researches show that the load-displacement and energy dissipation graphs for BFRP and GFRP RCSWs are lower in comparison to steel RCSWs. However, the close-range FRP results provide momentum toward utilisation of the FRP as an alternative to traditional steel reinforcement to improve durability with suitable energy dissipation in the RCSWs. Additionally, presented is the results of finite element (FE) models developed for the RCSWs utilising Ansys mechanical. Two models including "Solid65" and Microplane are developed which are capable of modelling the cracking/crushing and strain-softening, respectively. The FE results are validated with experimental results, and parametric studies are conducted on the FE models. The outcome of FE modelling show Ansys "Solid65" model can capture the hysteresis response of the samples until the failure point. And the Microplane model can simulate the strain-softening behaviour of the samples under pushover analysis. Overall the modelling outcomes show a good correspondence with experimental results, and the models are used for parametric studies. The key findings from the experimental study show that BFRP and GFRP can be utilized as a replacement to the traditional rebars in RCSWs as it has a similar hysteresis response. The theoretical studies confirm the experimental findings of FRP reinforced shear walls under cyclic and pushover loads. Furthermore, theoretical models can be used in the parametric studies of the shear wall responses under indicated loading.