LOS ANGELES TALL BUILDINGS STRUCTURAL DESIGN COUNCIL ANNUAL MEETING, Los Angeles, CA, May 2007 MODELING ISSUES FOR TALL REINFORCED CONCRETE CORE WALL BUILDINGS

Reinforced concrete walls are commonly used as the primary lateral-force-resistingsystem for tall buildings. As the tools for conducting nonlinear response history analysis have improved and with the advent of performance-based seismic design, reinforced concrete walls and core walls are often employed as the only lateral-force-resisting-system. Proper modeling of the load versus deformation behavior of reinforced concrete walls is essential to accurately predict important response quantities. Given this critical need, an overview of modeling approaches appropriate to capture the lateral load responses of both slender and stout reinforced concrete walls is presented. Modeling of both flexural and shear responses is addressed, as well as the potential impact of coupled flexure-shear behavior. Model results are compared with experimental results to assess the ability of common modeling approaches to accurately predict both global and local experimental responses. Based on the findings, specific recommendations are made for general modeling issues, limiting material strains for combined bending and axial load, and shear backbone relations.