711

ARTICLE
Compression failure of thin concrete walls during 2010 Chile
earthquake: lessons for Canadian design practice1
P. Adebar

Abstract: Numerous thin concrete walls failed in compression during the 2010 Chile earthquake. Experiments on small wall
elements indicate that thin concrete walls without tied vertical reinforcement may fail very suddenly at uniform compression
strains as low as 0.001 due to the thin layer of concrete between two layers of reinforcement becoming unstable. A test on a wall
subjected to axial compression and strong-axis bending demonstrated that unlike a tied column, a thin concrete wall can
suddenly lose all axial load-carrying capacity. Nonlinear response history analysis of a typical Chilean high-rise shear wall
building indicates small global drift demands and correspondingly small curvature and compression strain demands when
subjected to the ground motions measured in Santiago, which explains why most buildings were not damaged. Nonlinear nite
element analysis of a typical wall step-back irregularity indicates the increase in maximum compression strains due to a
reduction in wall length is much larger than predicted by a sectional analysis. Based on all the results of the current study, a
number of signicant changes are proposed for the 2014 edition of CSA A23.3 to avoid compression failures of thin concrete
walls, including limiting the axial compression force applied to thin bearing walls, accounting for unexpected strong-axis
bending of thin bearing walls, and limiting the compression strain demands on thin concrete shear walls.
Key words: building codes, compression, concrete walls, earthquake damage, high-rise buildings, nonlinear analysis, seismic
design, testing.
Rsum : Plusieurs murs minces en bton ont dfailli par rupture en compression lors du sisme de 2010 au Chili. Des
expriences sur des petits chantillons de mur indiquent que les murs minces en bton sans renforcement vertical attach
pouvaient dfaillir trs soudainement a` des contraintes uniformes en compression aussi faibles que 0,001 en raison de la mince
couche de bton entre deux couches darmature qui devenait instable. Un essai sur un mur soumis a` une compression axiale et
en exion dans laxe principal a dmontr quun mur mince en bton, contrairement a` une colonne attache, peut soudainement perdre toute sa capacit de charge axiale. Une analyse historique de la rponse non linaire dun immeuble de grande
hauteur typique au Chili, bti en utilisant des murs de contreventement, indique des petites demandes de glissement globales
et des petites demandes correspondantes de contraintes en courbure et en compression lorsque ces murs sont soumis aux
mouvements de sol mesurs a` Santiago. Cest ce qui explique pourquoi la majorit des immeubles na pas t endommag. Une
analyse non linaire par lments nis de lirrgularit typique de retrait dun mur souligne que laugmentation des contraintes
maximales en compression cause par une rduction dans la longueur du mur est beaucoup plus grande que celle prvue lors de
lanalyse sectionnelle. En se basant sur tous les rsultats de cette tude, plusieurs changements importants sont proposs pour
ldition 2014 de la norme CSA A23.3 an dviter les dfaillances en compression des murs minces en bton, incluant la
limitation de la force axiale en compression applique a` de minces murs porteurs, tenant compte dune forte exion inattendue
de laxe principal des murs porteurs minces et limitant les demandes de contraintes en compression des murs de contreventement minces en bton. [Traduit par la Rdaction]
Mots-cls : codes du btiment, compression, murs de bton, dommage de sisme, immeubles de grande hauteur, analyse non
linaire, conception sismique, essais.

Introduction
Although only a few buildings completely collapsed during the
magnitude M8.8 earthquake that occurred in the Maule region of
Chile on 27 February 2010, many buildings were badly damaged
and subsequently had to be demolished. A common type of damage to high-rise concrete buildings was compression failure of
shear walls. Figure 1 shows some examples. A description of the
damage in one of these buildings is provided by Sherstobitoff et al.
(2012).
A common form of high-rise residential construction in Chile is
to make every partition between rooms a concrete shear wall. The
thickness of these walls typically ranges from 120 to 200 mm, with
older buildings having thicker walls and newer buildings often

having thinner walls. Most of the damage occurred in newer shear

wall buildings with thinner walls.
High-rise residential buildings with numerous thin shear walls
are a more common form of construction in lower seismic regions
of Canada such as in Toronto. The numerous thin walls between
rooms support the oor slabs and control lateral drifts due to
wind or earthquake. Such buildings have also been constructed
on the west coast of Canada mostly prior to the development of
modern seismic design requirements; but some new buildings
have also been constructed this way. It is interesting to note that
the Pyne Gould Building in Christchurch, New Zealand collapsed
during the February 2011 earthquake in part because the east
core wall failed catastrophically in compression (Beca 2011). The

Received 19 July 2012. Accepted 22 March 2013.

P. Adebar. Department of Civil Engineering, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada.
E-mail for correspondence: adebar@civil.ubc.ca.
1This paper is one of a selection of papers in this Special Issue on Lessons Learned from Recent Earthquakes.

Can. J. Civ. Eng. 40: 711721 (2013) dx.doi.org/10.1139/cjce-2012-0315

Published at www.nrcresearchpress.com/cjce on 25 March 2013.

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Can. J. Civ. Eng. Vol. 40, 2013

Fig. 1. Compression failures of thin shear walls during 2010 Chile earthquake.

(a)

(c)

(b)

(d)

(e)

wall was 200 mm thick and had a single layer of reinforcement.

Although it is difcult to establish a simple denition, a wall with
a 200 mm thickness or less could be considered to be thin.
Most of the thin shear walls that failed in compression during
the 2010 Chile earthquake did not have boundary zones (concentrated vertical reinforcement with column ties) at the ends of the
wall. The horizontal reinforcement placed outside the vertical
reinforcement was typically terminated with 90-degree hooks
around the two vertical reinforcing bars at the end of the wall (see
Fig. 1b, 1c, and 1d). The failed wall shown in Fig. 1a did contain
concentrated reinforcing bars with nominal column ties; but this
was because the wall above cantilevered over the wall below
(Sherstobitoff et al. 2012). The additional demands due to this type
of irregularity are examined in the current study.
Walls designed according to Clause 14 of CSA A23.3-04, whether
conventional (Rd = 1.5) seismic-force resisting shear walls, windforce resisting shear walls or bearing walls can be as thin as 150 mm
and are not required to have boundary zones of tied vertical
reinforcement at the ends of the walls (ties are only required
when concentrated reinforcement in excess of two 20M bars is

provided). These walls are very similar to the thin walls that failed
in compression during the 2010 Chile earthquake. Conventional
(Rd = 1.5) shear walls are commonly used for buildings in lower
seismic regions and are permitted in buildings up to 30 m high
(about 12 stories) in the highest seismic regions in Canada. In
addition, the current requirements are such that a very tall building in the highest seismic regions in Canada can have thin walls
that have been designated as bearing walls even though these walls
may be subjected to signicant strong-axis bending due to the
seismic deformations of the designated seismic-force resisting
walls.
The current study was undertaken to better understand compression failures of thin concrete walls. An experimental investigation was undertaken on concrete wall elements with a variety
of reinforcement and subjected to a variety of load histories. The
experimental results provide new information on the compression strain capacity of thin concrete walls. To investigate the
compression strain demands on shear walls in typical high-rise
residential buildings in Chile, nonlinear response history analysis
was done on an example 18-story building using ground motions
Published by NRC Research Press

Adebar

Fig. 2. Small wall element test specimens: (a) cross sections

showing arrangement of reinforcement in the four types of
specimens, (b) elevation of specimen during testing showing end
plates and displacement transducers used to measure axial strain.

recorded in Chile during the February 2010 earthquake. Some of

the damaged shear wall buildings had irregularities in the lower
levels such as step-back walls (wall above overhangs wall below).
Nonlinear nite element (NLFE) analysis was used to investigate
how much such irregularities magnify the compression demands.
Based on the results of the current study, a number of signicant
changes are recommended for the 2014 edition of CSA A23.3 to
avoid compression failures of thin concrete walls.

Experimental study
A two-phase experimental study was conducted to understand
compression failures in thin concrete walls. In the rst phase,
many small wall elements were subjected to cyclic axial compression. The main parameters were wall thickness (which varied
from 140 to 250 mm), number of layers of horizontal wall reinforcement (no horizontal reinforcement, one layer or two layers),
clear cover to horizontal reinforcement, whether the wall had any
cross ties (out-of-plane reinforcement), and the height (slenderness) of the wall elements. In the second phase, a 140 mm thick
wall, reinforced similar to a typical Chilean shear wall, was subjected to axial compression combined with reverse cyclic lateral
load. Signicant details will be presented from the Phase 1 tests,
while only a brief summary will be presented from Phase 2.
The Phase 1 wall elements were either 610 or 910 mm high. A
schematic diagram of the four basic types of specimen cross sections are shown in Fig. 2a, while the details of the specimens are
summarized in Table 1. All vertical reinforcing bars, which were
welded to small steel plates at the top and bottom of the specimens to ensure full development, had a nominal diameter of
10 mm. The horizontal reinforcing bars had a diameter of 9.5, 10, 15
or 20 mm as given in Table 1. In Canada, walls up to 210 mm thick
can have a single layer of reinforcement, while the 140 mm thick
walls that failed in Chile typically had two layers of small diameter reinforcing bars. Type 1 specimens had a single layer of horizontal reinforcement and usually a single vertical reinforcing bar.
Specimens 10 and 11 had 180 hooks on the two ends of the horizontal reinforcement and two vertical bars within each hook
(called Type 1-H). All other specimens had the single layer of

713

straight horizontal reinforcement as shown in Fig. 2a. Type 2

specimens had two layers of horizontal reinforcement and two or
four vertical reinforcing bars. Type 3 specimens also had two layers of horizontal reinforcing bars; but these bars were hooked
around the ends of the walls. Specimens 1 to 4 and 22 (called Type
3-SH) had seismic hooks embedded into the core as shown in
Fig. 2a, while Specimens 5 and 6 (called Type 3-H) had 90-degree
hooks in the cover similar to the walls shown in Fig. 1. Specimen
21 is a unique Type 3 element that had U-shaped horizontal reinforcement that went around three sides of the specimen to simulate an element from the end of a wall. Finally, two Type 4
specimens did not contain any horizontal reinforcement.
All specimens were cast in wooden forms in the same position
as they were tested vertical bars in vertical position. Two
batches of ready-mix concrete were used to cast the specimens.
Specimens 1 to 11 were cast and tested in 2010, while the remaining specimens were cast in 2011. The 28-day cylinder compression
strength of the concrete determined from moist-cured cylinders
was found to be 30.3 MPa and 30.5 MPa for the two batches of
concrete cast one year apart. The 28-day compression strength
determined from eld-cured specimens was 25 MPa. The wall elements were tested between one and 6 months after casting. At
6 months, the concrete compression strength had only increased
to 32 MPa based on moist-cured cylinders and 26 MPa based on
eld-cured cylinders.
The specimens were loaded under pseudo strain control, i.e.,
the load was increased until the target average strain was
reached. The standard protocol involved ve cycles to each strain
level. The rst target strain level was 0.0005 and the subsequent
strain targets were 0.00025 higher than the previous one. Thus a
specimen loaded using the standard protocol to a maximum
strain of 0.0035 was loaded a total of 65 cycles ve cycles to each
of 13 strain levels between 0.0005 and 0.0035. Two of the specimens (1 and 4) were subjected to different protocols to study the
inuence of additional cycles at high strain.
The wall elements were subjected to concentric axial compression in a universal testing machine. To prevent failure at the top
and bottom and ensure uniform stress, the concrete elements
were grouted within conning steel angles attached to thick loading plates (see Fig. 2b). Four displacement transducers were used
to measure the average strain over a gauge length of 46 cm on the
61 cm high specimens and 76 cm on the 91 cm high specimens. In
three tests, no effort was made to ensure the specimens were
subjected to uniform strain and the strain gradients were recorded. During all other tests, the position of the specimen was
shifted slightly in the test frame after each loading cycle to ensure
concentric loading and uniform compression strain.

Results of compression tests on small wall

elements
The last four columns in Table 1 summarize the experimental
results. The measured vertical strains were used to estimate the
compression force resisted by the vertical reinforcement. The net
compression force resisted by concrete and net cross-sectional
area of concrete were used to calculate the maximum concrete
compression stress (fc-max in Table 1). The ratio of maximum compression stress to the 28-day compression strength based on
moist-cured cylinders is also shown. The strain capacity shown in
Table 1 is the largest compression strain level that the specimen
resisted 5 times without crushing. The strain at failure is the
maximum recorded compression strain prior to the specimen
losing load carrying capacity.
When the wall elements were subjected to a signicant variation of compression strain, the results were very different than
when the elements were subjected to uniform compression
strain. Specimens 7 and 8 were identical except for the compression strain gradient. Specimen 7 failed when the maximum comPublished by NRC Research Press

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Can. J. Civ. Eng. Vol. 40, 2013

Table 1. Summary of small wall element test specimens.

Horizontal bars
Specimen

Type

Thickness
(mm)

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27

3
3
3
3
3
3
2
2
4
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
2
3
3
2
2
2
2
4

140
140
140
140
140
140
140
140
140
140
140
152
152
203
203
203
203
203
203
203
203
203
254
254
254
254
203

Diameter
(mm)

Vertical
spacing (mm)

Cover
(mm)

No. of vertical
bars

Height
(mm)

fc-max
(MPa)

fc-max/
fc'

Strain
capacity

Strain
at failure

9.5
9.5
9.5
9.5
9.5
9.5
10
10

10
10
15
15
20
20
20
15
15
15
15
10
10
15
15
15
15

140
140
140
140
140
140
140
140

140
140
150
150
150
150
150
150
300
150
300
200
200
150
300
150
300

20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
30
60
60
20
60
20
50
80
20
20
40
40
20
20
20
20
40
40
40

4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
2
2
4
2
2
2
2
4

610
610
610
610
610
610
610
610
610
610
610
610
610
610
610
610
610
910
610
910
910
910
610
910
610
910
910

31.7
33.4
31.3
30.0
32.2
30.8
26.4
26.9
33.4
30.8
32.3
33.6
33.8
33.5
33.7
33.9
33.2
30.0
31.8
33.1
30.1
31.6
32.9
31.6
32.4
33.1
26.8

1.05
1.10
1.03
0.99
1.06
1.02
0.87
0.89
1.10
1.02
1.07
1.10
1.11
1.10
1.11
1.11
1.09
0.98
1.04
1.09
0.99
1.04
1.08
1.04
1.06
1.08
0.88

0.0035
0.0035
0.0035
0.0035
0.0035
0.0035
0.0015
0.0010
0.0033
0.0035
0.0020
0.0028
0.0030
0.0035
0.0033
0.0028
0.0035
0.0015
0.0025
0.0023
0.0035
0.0030
0.0030
0.0018
0.0035
0.0020
0.0015

0.0043
0.0043
0.0044
0.0046
0.0039
0.0039
0.0017
0.0013
0.0033
0.0037
0.0023
0.0029
0.0031
0.0039
0.0034
0.0030
0.0039
0.0016
0.0026
0.0026
0.0038
0.0031
0.0032
0.0020
0.0038
0.0023
0.0017

pression strain at one end was 0.0023, while the minimum

compression strain at the other end was only 0.0011 (average of
0.0017). Specimen 8 failed when subjected to a uniform compression strain of 0.0013. Specimens 10 and 11 were also identical
except for the variation of compression strain. Specimen 10 failed
when the compression strain was 0.006 at one end and 0.0015 at
the other end (average of 0.0037), while Specimen 11 failed at a
uniform compression strain of 0.0023. The compression strains
reported in Table 1 are the average values.
The specimens with signicant strain variation behaved similarly. The end subjected to higher compression strains had visible
damage prior to failure, whereas the end that was subjected to
lower compression strains had no visible damage prior to failure.
Failure occurred when the end subjected to lower compression
strains became damaged. This behavior explains why concrete
subjected to signicant strain gradient is able to tolerate larger
maximum compression strains the concrete subjected to
lower compression strain stabilizes the concrete subjected to
higher compression strain. In all subsequent tests, the compression strains were kept uniform as the specimens were meant to
represent small elements of long thin walls.
Figure 3 shows two typical recorded loaddeformation relationships. The load is expressed as the compression stress P/Ag and the
deformation is expressed as the average compression strain measured by the four displacement transducers. Specimen 6 shown in
Fig. 3a is typical of many specimens that had a strain capacity of
0.0035, which is the maximum target strain. The maximum compression force was applied to the specimen at a strain of about
0.002. As the specimen was pushed to higher compression strains,
the maximum compression force during each load cycle reduced
and increasing damage was observed.
Specimen 8 shown in Fig. 3b is a good example of a specimen
with low compression strain capacity. After cycling to a compression strain demand of 0.0010 with no visible damage, the specimen suddenly exploded when pushed to a compression strain of

0.0013. Figure 4 shows photographs of two specimens that failed

at low compression strains. The failures were clearly inuenced
by the horizontal reinforcement in the wall. These failures are
reminiscent of failures observed in thin concrete walls in Chile
after the 2010 earthquake.
Figure 5 examines the relationship between height-to-thickness
ratio of the wall elements and the minimum compression strain
capacity of concrete. As the compression stress applied to concrete approaches the compression strength, the concrete becomes unstable. The concrete in the more slender wall elements is
less inuenced by the restraint at the top and bottom of the elements and therefore becomes unstable at lower compression
strain values. The wall element with the lowest strain capacity
was 140 mm thick and had two layers of 10 mm diameter horizontal reinforcement. This is very similar to many of the walls that
failed during the earthquake in Chile.
The most important conclusion from the compression tests on
wall elements is that concrete walls subjected to uniform compression strain and not containing any tied vertical reinforcement may
have a compression strain capacity as low as 0.001. Long concrete
walls will have a low strain gradient and thus almost uniform strains.
For example, typical shear walls in high-rise residential buildings in
Chile are from 6 to 8 m long. A transverse wall that acts as a compression ange for a shear wall will also be subjected to uniform
strain.
Specimens 2 and 3 were identical to Specimens 5 and 6 except
that 2 and 3 had seismic hooks on the horizontal reinforcement
(Type 3-SH), whereas 5 and 6 had 90-degree hooks similar to walls
in Chile (Type 3-H). All four specimens had a compression strain
capacity of 0.0035 indicating the 90-degree hooks provided adequate anchorage in these wall elements. It is important to note
that the cover did not spall on the widely spaced horizontal reinforcement. It is expected that if the element had been subjected to
numerous cycles after cover spalling, signicant difference would
be seen between the two types of hooks.
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Fig. 3. Example results from wall element tests axial compression

stress P/Ag versus average compression strain: (a) Specimen 6 with
nominal column ties, (b) Specimen 8 with horizontal wall
reinforcement but no through-the-thickness reinforcement.

(a)

35

Fig. 4. Photographs of Specimen 7 (left) and Specimen 8 (right) after

the test. Note red circles highlight locations of horizontal wall steel.

Average (LP1,LP2)

Specimen 6

30

Stress (MPa)

25
20
15
10
5
0
0

0.5

1.5

Strain

(b)

3.5

4
x 10

-3

Average Value (LP1,LP2)

30

Specimen 8

25

Stress (MPa)

2.5

Fig. 5. Relationship between compression strain capacity of

concrete and height-to-thickness of wall elements.

20
15
10
5
0
0

0.5

1.5

Strain

2.5

3.5

4
x 10

-3

Specimen 1 was subjected to the standard protocol until reaching a compression strain of 0.002 and then was subjected to 30
cycles at 0.002 and 10 cycles at every strain level beyond that until
failure (total of 60 cycles at a compression strain 0.002). Specimen 4 was subjected to one cycle of loading to standard target
strains and then was subjected to 55 cycles at a strain of 0.003.
Although both specimens degraded somewhat due to the additional loading cycles, the amount of degradation was surprisingly
small suggesting that the large number of cycles that occurred
during the Maule Earthquake accelerations exceeding 5% g
lasted up to two minutes in some regions of Chile may not have
been a signicant factor in the compression failures of thin walls.
Specimen 11 had a single layer of horizontal reinforcement at
the middle of the wall and was subjected to uniform compression
strain. At a maximum compression strain of 0.0023, the specimen, with no prior indication of damage, suddenly split into two
along the central layer of horizontal reinforcement. This brittle
failure is important because of the compression failure of a similar wall in the Pyne Gould Building in Christchurch, New Zealand
and because of the many such walls that exist in older Canadian
buildings. Additional results from the wall element tests are reported by Adebar and Lorzadeh 2012.

Results from wall subjected to reverse cyclic

bending
In the second phase of testing (Chin 2012), a 140 mm thick wall
that was 1.1 m long was subjected to an axial compression of
1500 kN (0.33fc
Ag) combined with reverse cyclic lateral load applied 1.41 m above the base causing a signicant reverse cyclic
strain gradient in the wall. The thin wall was reinforced similar to
a typical Chilean shear wall two layers of 10M vertical and
horizontal reinforcement except the two vertical bars at the end
of the wall were 15M bars. There were a total of 8 vertical bars
(4 pairs) and the horizontal reinforcement was spaced at 135 mm.
The horizontal reinforcement was terminated with 90-degree
hooks around the vertical reinforcing bars at the ends of the wall
as is the typical detail in Chile. The wall specimen was similar to a
140 mm thick Type 3 wall element.
Because the wall was subjected to a very signicant strain gradient (due to the short wall length) and the horizontal reinforcePublished by NRC Research Press

716

Fig. 6. Photograph of thin concrete wall specimen (140 mm

1100 mm) subjected to 35% of fc
Ag after complete collapse.

Can. J. Civ. Eng. Vol. 40, 2013

Fig. 7. Description of simplied example building: (a) partial oor

plan, (b) close-up of one T-shaped wall within the 5 m wide analysis
strip. The second wall is a mirror image of this wall.
6m

1.6 m

6m

5m
5 m analysis strip

5m

(a)
200 mm
4 22 mm bars (each end)
5m
8 mm bars E.W. & E.F.

(b)

ment bent around the end of the wall acted as cross ties, concrete
crushing occurred at a large compression strain at the edge of the
wall. The most notable result from the test is that the wall completely collapsed after a small portion of concrete at the end of the
wall crushed in compression. Figure 6 shows how the wall looked
after the failure. Unlike the tied columns with square cross sections that were tested, which have a signicant core of undamaged concrete within the tied vertical reinforcement, thin
concrete walls can suddenly lose all axial load carrying capacity
because the undamaged concrete between the two layers of reinforcement is very thin. This is an important issue that must be
accounted for in the design of thin walls. Another observation is
the 90-degree bends on the horizontal reinforcement did not open
(see bottom right corner of wall in Fig. 6) as was observed in the
small element tests.

Analysis of example building

To investigate the compression strain demands on typical highrise residential shear wall buildings in Chile, an analytical study
was done on an example 18-story building. The example building
was modeled after an actual building in Santiago that suffered
signicant damage in the earthquake (Sherstobitoff et al. 2012);
however the details were simplied to make the results applicable
to typical buildings in Chile rather than one specic building.
Figure 7 shows a partial plan of the example building. As in
many shear wall buildings in Chile, two corridor shear walls exist
over the entire length of building in the long direction. Transverse
shear walls spaced regularly at 5.0 m on centre are attached to the
corridor walls. A 5.0 m wide strip of the building with one pair of
transverse shear walls in the centre is the structure that was analyzed in the current study.
All walls are 200 mm thick. The 6.0 m long transverse shear
walls had four 22 mm diameter bars (cross-sectional area of
390 mm2 per bar) at each end of the wall (outer edge of building
and intersection of transverse shear wall and corridor wall). The

6m

remainder wall area has 8 mm diameter bars (cross-sectional area

of 50 mm2) spaced at 200 mm each way (horizontal and vertical)
and on each face of the wall (two layers).
The lateral force resisting system is two back-to-back T-shaped
cantilever shear walls. For any direction of loading, the 5.0 m wide
ange on one wall will be in tension, while the 5.0 m wide
ange on the other wall will be in compression. Frame action
created by the two corridor walls interconnected by the 120 mm
thick corridor slab spanning 1.6 m between the walls was ignored
as nonlinear analysis indicated the contribution was small
(Sherstobitoff et al. 2012). The slabs were 150 mm thick everywhere but in the corridor. The concrete compression strength was
30 MPa, and reinforcement yield strength was 400 MPa.
The mass per oor for the 5.0 m slice of building, which is 13.6 m
wide, is 31 200 kg. This includes self-weight of concrete slabs and
walls, tile nishes on oors, plaster nishes on walls and ceilings,
and an exterior curtain wall. For the 18 oors plus roof, the total
mass creates an axial compression force of 5500 kN at the base of
each of the two walls. Using a modulus of elasticity E of concrete
equal to 24 650 MPa, the gross (uncracked) section exural rigidity
EI of the two cantilever walls is equal to 400 106 kNm2. Assuming
the mass is uniformly distributed over the 46.8 m height of cantilever walls, and neglecting shear deformations results in an estimate for the fundamental period T1 equal to 0.68 s. A computer
analysis determined the rst three periods of the building to be
T1 = 0.72 s, T2 = 0.11 s, and T3 = 0.04 s. The ratio of wall height to
fundamental period H/T1 is equal to 65 m/s, which is in the middle
of the range for typical Chilean shear wall buildings.

Bending moment curvature response of walls

As the T-shaped shear walls had very thin wide anges (0.2 m
5.0 m), a nonlinear FE analysis using program VecTor2 (Wong and
Vecchio 2002) was done to investigate whether the exural compression strains and exural tension strains are uniform across
the width of the ange. The three-dimensional analysis was done
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Fig. 8. Bending moment curvature relationships for T-shaped wall with maximum axial compression P = 5500 kN at base of wall and zero
axial compression at top of wall; for both case of ange of wall in tension and ange of wall in compression. Nonlinear curves and
trilinear approximations.

35000
Flange in tension; P = 5500 kN

30000

Bending Moment (kNm)

max. fibre strain = 0.003

25000
max. fibre strain = 0.001

20000
Flange in comp.; P = 5500 kN

15000

Flange in tension; P = 0

10000

Flange in comp.; P = 0

5000
0
0.0

0.5

1.0
Curvature (rad/km)

using a two-dimensional program by using a pseudo-3 D approach

developed by Mercer (2012). It is expected that if there is a large
amount of vertical reinforcement in the ange, the strains would
not be uniform in tension, i.e., there would be signicant shear
lag. The results indicated that for the current walls, the strains are
uniform in both tension and compression, and thus a simple
plane sections analysis, where the stresses are assumed to be uniform across the section, can be done.
Program Response 2000 (Bentz 2000) was used to develop the
bending moment curvature relationships for the walls. Four
cases were analyzed: ange in compression, ange in tension, and
for each of these P = 5500 kN (at base of wall) and P = 0 (at top of
wall). The results from the analysis are summarized in Fig. 8. For
each case, the actual nonlinear relationship is shown along with a
trilinear approximation. As noted by Adebar and Ibrahim (2002), a
trilinear relationship can be used as a very good approximation to
the bending moment curvature relationship for typical concrete
shear walls. The bending moment curvature relationships
shown in Fig. 8 are the upper-bound response including the effect
of concrete tension stiffening.
As expected, concrete reaches a compression strain of 0.003
rst in the wall with the ange in tension (narrow web in
compression) and largest axial compression (P = 5500 kN at base of
building). Crushing of concrete due to excessive curvature demand would occur rst at the outside edge of the building where
the wall is narrow. The curvature when concrete reaches a compression strain of 0.003 is 1.8 rad/km and this point is indicated as
a round data point in Fig. 8. The compression strain of 0.003 was
selected because it is the assumed compression strain capacity of
unconned concrete in walls according to ACI 318, which is referenced by the Chilean building code NCh433.Of96.
The curvature at which the walls reach a compression strain of
0.001 is indicated by solid triangles. The curvature at which the
critical wall (ange in tension; P = 5500 kN) reaches a maximum
compression strain of 0.001 is 0.36 rad/km. Note that while the
compression strain is reduced by a factor of 3 from 0.003 to 0.001,
the curvature capacity is reduced by a factor of 5 from 1.8 to 0.36.
The reason is the larger compression strain depth when the maximum compression strain is smaller.

1.5

2.0

Nonlinear response history analysis of example

building
The recorded ground motion from the City of Santiago that was
selected for the study was recorded at station Colegio Las Americas
(The Americas School) located at 33.45 and 70.53. The PGA for the
horizontal motion is 0.31g for North-South (N-S) direction and 0.23g
for the East-West (E-W) direction. The record sampling rate was 100
per second and thus a time step of 0.01 s was used in the analysis.
Program OpenSees was used to do the nonlinear response history
analysis of the example building. A hysteretic bending moment
curvature model was developed for OpenSees as part of a project on
estimating exural demands in high-rise cantilever shear walls
(Dezhdar 2012). The input to the model includes the trilinear upperbound bending moment curvature relationships shown in Fig. 8, as
well as the lower-bound trilinear relationships that are appropriate
after signicant cracking in the wall has occurred and there is no
concrete tension stiffening. The parameters that dene the trilinear
relationships vary linearly over the building height as vertical reinforcement is uniform and axial compression varies linearly.
Figure 9 presents a portion of the time history of maximum
curvatures at base of building due to the N-S direction ground
motion. Approximately 80 cycles of maximum curvature occur
during the 60 s time period. The maximum curvature demand
is 0.36 rad/km at a time of 62 s, which is much less than the
1.8 rad/km curvature at which the concrete reaches a compression strain of 0.003. As discussed above, the maximum compression strain demand is 0.001 at a curvature of 0.36 rad/km. As the
end of the wall has cross ties, a maximum compression strain of
0.001 is not expected to cause any signicant damage.
The low curvature demands in the shear walls are consistent
with the observation that few high-rise shear wall buildings in
Santiago were damaged, and those that were damaged generally
had features such as irregularities that increased the compression
strain demands. The magnication of compression strains due to
the irregularity that existed in the example building are investigated below using nonlinear nite element analysis.
While the ratio of wall height to fundamental period H/T1 =
65 m/s for the example building is very typical of Chilean shear wall
buildings, it is very different than what is common practice in
Published by NRC Research Press

718

Can. J. Civ. Eng. Vol. 40, 2013

Fig. 9. Partial time history of maximum curvature at base of

example 18-story shear wall due to N-S direction ground motion.

Fig. 10. Results from NLTHA of example 18-story shear wall

building (T1 = 0.72 s), as well as for same building with increased
fundamental period (increased mass): (a) displacement envelopes,
(b) curvature envelopes.

0.4

(a) 50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0

0.2
0.1
0.0
-0.1

40

50

60

70

80

90

Height (m)

Curvature (rad/km)

0.3

100

-0.2
-0.3
-0.4

Time (s)

(1)

t
lw hw

where is a constant, lw is the wall length, and t/hw is the ratio of

maximum displacement at top of wall to height of wall (maximum
global drift). Based on the results of response history analysis of the
cantilever direction of 13 different Canadian core wall buildings
from 10 to 50 stories high (Dezhdar 2012), an estimate of mean curvature demand can be made from mean displacement demand using
= 1.25 and an estimate of mean plus one standard deviation curvature demand can be made from mean displacement demand using

0.00

0.10

0.20
0.30
Displacement (m)

0.40

0.5

1
1.5
Curvature (rad/km)

(b) 50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Height (m)

Canada where the fundamental period of an 18-story shear wall

building would probably be about 1.8 s. This corresponds to a ratio
of wall height to fundamental period H/T1 less than 30 m/s. As
ground motions similar to that recorded in Santiago are expected
to occur on the west coast of Canada due to a subduction earthquake centred in the Cascadia subduction zone, it is interesting to
investigate how the curvature demands would increase if the example building had a longer fundamental period. In Canada, the
buildings are more exible because fewer shear walls are provided. Thus the mass attributed to the pair of shear walls in the
analysis was increased to achieve higher fundamental periods.
The mass was increased by factors of 2, 4, 6, 9, and 12, resulting in
initial fundamental periods of the buildings (based on uncracked
exural rigidity) equal to 1.0, 1.4, 1.8, 2.2, and 2.5 s.
Figure 10 presents the displacement envelopes and curvature envelopes for the N-S direction ground motion. The envelope with the
smallest displacements and envelope with the smallest curvatures
are from the example building with the actual mass. The other envelopes are from buildings with longer initial fundamental periods.
While the concrete shear walls crack in the example building, the
vertical reinforcement does not yield. When the building period is
increased (mass increased), the bending moment demand at base of
building is increased and vertical reinforcement yields. When the
initial fundamental period is increased to 2.2 and 2.5 s, signicant
yielding occurs at mid-height of the building; however the curvature
is still maximum at the base of the wall.
The results from the nonlinear response history analysis for the
example building, including maximum displacements at top of wall,
corresponding global drift and maximum curvatures at base of wall
are summarized for both the N-S and E-W ground motions in Table 2.
Because of the irregular shape of the displacement spectra, the top
wall displacements do not increase steadily as the periods increase.
Figure 11 summarizes the relationship between maximum top wall
displacement and maximum curvature demand. Also shown is the
estimate from the following simple expression:

Table 2. Results from nonlinear response history analysis (NRHA) of

example building.
Maximum
Initial
Top wall
curvature
fundamental Ground displacement
Global drift from NRHA
period (s)
motions from NRHA (cm) from NRHA (rad/km)
0.72
1.0
1.4
1.8
2.2
2.5

N-S
E-W
N-S
E-W
N-S
E-W
N-S
E-W
N-S
E-W
N-S
E-W

18.0
18.0
34.1
21.1
26.8
30.0
37.3
25.8
28.1
22.0
28.0
26.2

0.004
0.004
0.007
0.005
0.006
0.006
0.008
0.006
0.006
0.005
0.006
0.006

0.37
0.35
1.30
0.39
1.56
1.25
1.75
0.95
1.41
1.57
1.31
2.13

= 2.0. As shown in Fig. 11, this simple expression does a remarkably

good job of estimating maximum curvature demands.

NLFE analysis of wall step-back irregularity

Many shear walls that failed in compression during the 2010
Chile earthquake had irregularities that caused increased compression strain demands at the ends of the wall. A common examPublished by NRC Research Press

Adebar

Fig. 11. Relationship between top wall displacement and maximum

curvature demand at base of wall: comparison of results from NRHA
with prediction of eq. (1).

ple is a reduction in the transverse shear wall lengths in the lower

levels. The inside ends of the transverse wall are aligned at the
central corridor wall in the building; but the transverse shear wall
no longer extends the full distance to the edge of the building.
Thus the transverse shear wall above overhangs the wall below.
The damage in the 18-story condominium building in Santiago
(Sherstobitoff et al. 2012) was located exactly where the shear wall
length decreased in the rst level below grade see Fig. 1a. To
investigate the increase in compression strain demands due to
this wall step-back irregularity, a study was conducted using nonlinear nite element program VecTor2 (Wong and Vecchio 2002).
The transverse shear wall length of 6.0 m shown in Fig. 7 was
reduced to 5.0 m in the rst level below grade in the example
building. All of the reinforcement in the 6.0 m wall above was
continued into the 5.0 m wall below plus eight 22 mm diameter
bars were added at the end of the wall supporting the overhang
above (see Fig. 1a). The response history analysis indicates the
elastic bending moment demand at the base of the example building due to the measured ground motion in Santiago is 38 000 kNm.
Plane sections analysis of the reduced-length wall subjected
to an axial compression force of 5500 kN indicates a bending
resistance of 25 400 kNm when the web is in compression and the
axial compression is applied at the gross section centroid. Accounting for the 0.5 m eccentricity of the 5500 kN gravity load
due to the 1.0 m step-back, the bending resistance reduces to
17 000 kNm. Thus the combined bending resistance of the 6.0 m
wall with ange in compression (16 200 kNm) and reduced-length
wall with web in compression equals 33 200 kNm (only one wall
has a step-back). The ratio of total elastic bending moment demand to total bending resistance is 1.14. It is interesting to note
that since Update 3, CSA A23.3-04 does not require designs to meet
ductility or capacity design requirements if the structure has sufcient strength to resist loads calculated using Rd Ro equal to 1.3.
Nonlinear nite element analysis of the critical portion of wall
(reduction from 6.0 m length to 5.0 m length) was conducted to
determine the magnication of compression strains due to the
sudden change in wall length. Four stories of the wall (two below
the change in wall length and two above) were modeled using
250 mm square elements. The critical zone where strain concentration is expected (where wall length is reduced) was further
discretized into 100 mm square elements. The wall was subjected

719

Fig. 12. Results from NLFE analysis of wall irregularity (reduction of

wall length from 6.0 m to 5.0 m): (a) vertical strain proles across
2.0 m wide exural compression zone of wall immediately below
irregularity for two levels of lateral loading, (b) comparison of
maximum compression strains determine from plane sections
analysis, which are similar to the strains away from the irregularity,
and maximum compression strains determine from NLFE analysis in
four elements.

to a constant axial load of 5500 kN (at the centre of the upper

wall), and increasing bending moment until failure.
Figure 12 summarizes the NLFE results for two levels of lateral
load, and compares these with the results of a plane sections
analysis, which is the analysis a designer would likely use.
Figure 12a presents the horizontal prole of vertical strain across
a portion of wall just below the step-back. The dashed lines show
the predicted vertical strains from a plane sections analysis. The
NLFE analysis results (solid lines) indicate there are very large
magnications of compression strains below the wall step-back.
Figure 12b shows how the magnication of compression strain
changes as the loading is increased. The horizontal axis is the
maximum compression strain predicted by a plane sections analPublished by NRC Research Press

720

ysis, which compare well with the maximum compression strain

lower down in the wall away from the inuence of the step-back.
The vertical axis of Fig. 12b is the maximum compression strain
determined from NLFE analysis. If there was no magnication of
compression strains, all data points would lie along the solid diagonal line where the horizontal and vertical axes have equal
value. The amount the data points are above this line indicates the
magnication of strain. The dashed diagonal lines indicate the
magnication of compression strains when the structure is in the
linear elastic range. These magnications can be predicted using
a linear FE analysis. As the concrete response becomes more nonlinear, the magnication of compression strains increases.
The element with the largest compression strain reaches a
compression strain of 0.003 when the predicted maximum
compression strain from a plane sections analysis is only 0.001
(magnication factor of 3.0). If the average strains from the four
elements are used, the compression strain limit reaches 0.003
when the predicted maximum strain from a plane sections analysis is 0.0013 (magnication factor of 2.3). This magnication factor can be reasonably estimated using a linear FE analysis. A
rened linear analysis could be made by reducing the modulus of
elasticity in the elements that are subjected to higher stresses. The
strain magnication is very signicant and must be accounted for
when determining whether the maximum compression strains in
concrete will exceed the compression strain capacity of concrete
in a wall below a step-back irregularity.

Conclusions
The conclusions from the three parts of the current study are
summarized below beginning with the conclusions from experiments on thin concrete walls:
1. When subjected to a signicant strain gradient, the maximum compression strain that concrete can tolerate is greatly
increased because the undamaged concrete subjected to
lower compression strains stabilizes the damaged concrete
subjected to the maximum compression strain. This observation, which has been made in many previous studies, was
reafrmed by the current tests. Conversely, when concrete is
subjected to uniform compression strain, it may become unstable at lower compression strains the slenderness of the
concrete element inuences the strain at which concrete may
become unstable.
2. Thin concrete walls without any cross ties were found to fail
at uniform compression strains as low as 0.001. Concrete
crushing occurs very suddenly with little prior damage. A
140 mm thick wall with two layers of horizontal reinforcement had the lowest compression strain capacity, while
200 mm and 250 mm thick walls with two layers of horizontal reinforcement had compression strain capacities as low as
0.0015 and 0.0018, respectively. Failure occurs when the thin
layer of undamaged concrete between the two cages of reinforcement becomes unstable.
3. Thin walls with a single layer of reinforcement where found
to fail in a very brittle manner; but at higher compression
strains than thin walls with two layers of reinforcement, presumably because the total thickness of undamaged concrete
is larger in walls with a single layer of reinforcement.
4. A light cage of reinforcement with widely-spaced transverse
reinforcement as required in gravity-load columns is sufcient to stabilize the concrete in a thin wall subjected to
uniform compression strains so that it will not become unstable prematurely and the compression response of the concrete will be similar to a standard cylinder.
5. When walls contain cross ties or boundary zone reinforcement
that stabilizes the damaged concrete, the compression strain
capacity of the walls do not appear to be signicantly inuenced

Can. J. Civ. Eng. Vol. 40, 2013

by the increased number of cycles that occur in a typical subduction earthquake such as the 2010 Chile earthquake.
6. The 90-degree hooks around the end vertical reinforcing bars
were never observed to open, as has occurred in column tests
when the concrete is subjected to signicant compression
strains after cover spalling. Thus the 90-degree hooks provided adequate anchorage of the horizontal wall reinforcement.
7. Unlike tied columns with square cross sections, which have a
signicant core of undamaged concrete within the tied vertical reinforcement, thin concrete walls can suddenly lose all
axial load carrying capacity because the undamaged concrete
within the vertical reinforcement is very thin.
The conclusions from the nonlinear response history analysis of an example Chile high-rise residential shear wall building can be summarized as follows:
8. The example 18-story residential shear wall building with a
height-to-fundamental period ratio of 65 m/s, which is very
typical of Chilean buildings, was found to have very small
global drift demands (0.4%) when subjected to the ground
motions measured in Santiago during the 2010 Chile earthquake. As a result, the maximum curvature demands in the
walls were found to be small.
9. The shear walls in the example building are such that the
axial compression strain is small when the exural tension
reinforcement rst yields, including the walls with large tension ange and no compression ange. The curvature demand on the walls has to increase signicantly beyond rst
yielding before the concrete will fail in compression. This
explains why most high-rise residential shear wall buildings
in Santiago were not damaged during the 2010 earthquake.
10. Typical high-rise residential shear wall buildings in western
Canada have fewer thicker shear walls and as a result, have a
longer fundamental period than a typical building of the
same height in Chile. As a result, the Canadian buildings
would experience larger displacements, larger curvatures,
and larger compression strain demands.
The conclusions from the nonlinear nite element analysis of a typical wall step-back irregularity can be summarized as follows:
11. When a shear wall suddenly reduces in length going down the
structure, there is signicant magnication of concrete compression strain demands at the compression edge of the
shorter length shear wall that supports the overhanging
shear wall above. Plane-sections analysis, which can be used
to calculate the exural capacity of the shorter length wall,
cannot be used to estimate the maximum compression
strains in the shorter length wall.
12. The magnication of compression strains is larger than what
is determined from a linear FE analysis; but a reasonable
estimate can be made using linear FE analysis.
13. If the critical section for bending moment occurs at a wall
step-back, as was the case in the example building, failure
may result from a concentration of inelastic demands over a
small height of wall. This can be avoided by ensuring that
yielding of the wall (the critical section) occurs above the
irregularity.
In most concrete buildings, there are additional concrete shear
walls below grade and a linear analysis assuming the oor diaphragms are rigid will indicate that the bending moments in the
tower shear walls reduce very quickly below grade (large negative
shear forces in tower walls below grade). Caution is needed when
applying the results of such an analysis to determine the critical
section in the shear wall as the calculated bending moments are
very sensitive to the stiffness assumptions. A complete methodology for designing shear walls below grade, including recommenPublished by NRC Research Press

Adebar

dations on appropriate effective stiffness for shear walls and oor

diaphragms is given by Rad and Adebar (2009).

Proposed changes for CSA A23.3- 2014

Based on the results of the current study and a review of the
requirements for concrete walls in the 2004 edition of CSA A23.3,
the following changes are recommended for the 2014 edition of
CSA A23.3 to avoid compression failures of thin concrete walls.

Limit axial compression applied to thin bearing

walls
A literal reading of CSA A23.3-04 suggests a bearing wall designed for concentric loading by Clause 10 can have Pr,max equal to
Pro, i.e., the wall does not have to be designed for any minimum
eccentricity. This is not the intent; but Clause 10.10, which denes
Pr,max as a portion of Pro, refers specically to columns and not
general compression members that includes bearing walls. This is
an obvious error that needs to be corrected.
Analogous to the way spirally-reinforced columns have a larger
maximum factored axial load resistance Pr,max as a portion of the
factored axial load resistance at zero eccentricity Pro than tied
columns because they have increased toughness due to enhanced
connement of the core, concrete walls particularly thin concrete walls should have a lower Pr,max to account for the limited
toughness and increased likelihood of a complete collapse of
these members as occurred in the Phase 2 wall test.
The current denition of bearing walls in CSA A23.3-04 walls
that support in-plane vertical loads, weak-axis bending moments
and the corresponding shear forces implies that a wall designated as a bearing wall does not have to be designed for any
strong-axis bending moments. Strong-axis bending moments will
be induced in bearing walls due to the deformations of the lateral
force resisting system subjected to the factored lateral forces due
to wind or earthquake. The calculation of the factored axial load
resistance of bearing walls must account for unintended strongaxis bending moments. The simplest way to accomplish this is to
limit the maximum compression strain depth in a bearing wall to
a portion of the length of the shear wall that controls strong-axis
bending of the bearing wall. This is consistent with what was
proposed by Adebar et al. (2010) for the design of elongated
gravity-load columns. If the length of a bearing wall is much less
than the length of the shear walls in a building, the capacity of
the bearing wall can be calculated based on the total area of the
bearing wall, whereas if a bearing wall is long compared to the
shear walls, only a portion of the bearing wall length can be used
to calculate the factored axial load resistance.

Limit compression strain demands in shear walls

For ductile and moderately ductile shear walls designed according to Clause 21, the ends of all walls are required to contain tied
vertical reinforcement, and a check is made to ensure the compression strain demands are less than the compression strain capacity within the plastic hinge region. The compression strain
depth must be limited to a portion of the shear wall length depending on the drift demands. For shear walls without connement reinforcement (strain capacity assumed to be 0.0035) in a
building with low drift demands, the compression strain depths
must be limited to 29% and 35% of the shear wall length for ductile
and moderately ductile shear walls, respectively (Adebar et al.
2005).
Currently, there are no limits on the compression strain demands above the plastic hinge regions in ductile shear walls,
there are no requirements for tied vertical reinforcement or limits on the compression strains anywhere in conventional construction (Rd = 1.5) shear walls, and there are no requirements for

721

tied vertical reinforcement or limits on compression strains in

shear walls designed to resist wind loads according to Clause 14.
Higher mode bending moments can cause yielding of shear walls
near mid-height and therefore the compression strains need to be
limited to prevent crushing of concrete near mid-height of all thin
shear walls. While conventional construction shear walls are not
expected to be subjected to large curvature demands, tied vertical
reinforcement should be provided at the compression ends of
walls near the base, and a compression strain limit is required to
prevent crushing of thin conventional construction shear walls.
The compression strain demands are expected to be lowest in
shear walls designed for wind loads; however unexpected crushing could occur at the compression end of thin concrete shear
walls that are subjected to the factored wind loads and have no
tied vertical reinforcement. An investigation has shown that if
wind-resisting shear walls are designed conservatively for out-ofplane slenderness, crushing of concrete is unlikely to occur. Thus
such a requirement should be added to Clause 14.
To ensure the compression strain demands do not exceed the
compression strain capacity of thin concrete shear walls, designers need a methodolgy to estimate the magnication of compression strain demands due to irregularities such as a step back (wall
above overhangs wall below) or when a perpendicular wall acting
as a compression ange is suddenly terminated. Additional work
is currently being done to develop such a methodolgy.

Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to his graduate students who made important contributions to the work reported in this paper. Amir
Lorzadeh conducted the small wall element tests under cyclic
compression, while Helen Chin conducted the large shear wall
test. Ehsan Dezhdar conducted the NRHA using OpenSees. Stephen Mercer conducted pseudo three-dimensional analysis with
VecTor2 to investigate shear lag in the thin wall anges. Funding
to undertake the research was provided by the Natural Sciences
and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to the
Canadian Seismic Research Network (CSRN).

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