| Many reinforced concrete structures, such as shear walls, deep beams, box bridges, nuclear containment vessels, and offshore structures can be visualized as assemblies of reinforced concrete plane stress elements. The behavior of these structures can be predicted using the finite element method.; The most appropriate model for predicting the cyclic shear behavior of reinforced concrete plane stress elements is the Cyclic Softened Membrane Model (CSMM). In this research by adopting the CSMM and the object-oriented finite element framework OpenSees, a nonlinear finite element program, SRCS, has been developed. The program is able to predict the nonlinear behavior of reinforced concrete plane stress structures subjected to static, reversed cyclic, and dynamic loading. The program was validated with different types of structures in the literature including panels, shear walls, and bridge piers.; Reinforced concrete shear walls are commonly used as lateral force-resisting elements of structures under seismic loading. Previous research shows that the ductility and energy dissipation of the reinforced concrete plane stress elements would be increased when steel grids were oriented in the principal tensile stress direction. In this research, four shear walls were tested under reversed cyclic loading and four shear walls were tested on a shake table under earthquake excitation. The shear walls were predetermined with steel grids oriented in the principal tensile stress directions in the critical regions. The seismic behavior of these shear walls was studied based on the experimental results. The developed finite element program was used to perform nonlinear reversed cyclic and dynamic analysis of the specimens, and the analytical results were verified with the test data. In addition, the effect of steel grid orientation on the seismic behavior of shear walls was studied using the developed program.; The whole study in this research can be expressed as four steps: modeling, implementation, validation, and application. The integrated theme behind these subjects can be interpreted as model-based simulation of reinforced concrete plane stress structures. |
