Non-rectangular Rc Walls: a Review on Experimental Investigations

When compared to tests on reinforced concrete (RC) walls with a rectangular or barbelled crosssection, only very few tests on RC walls with open cross-section exist. Most of these walls were subjected to unidirectional or bidirectional loading along one or both of the principal axes of the wall section. It was rare that tests were done using load paths that did not follow the principal axes. This article presents a review of experimental tests of non-rectangular RC walls with open cross-section. The summary comprises tests on individual non-rectangular walls with different cross-sections such as for example L-shaped or U-shaped walls which were tested under quasi-static or dynamic loads. The tests are described with their prototype structure, test objectives, investigated parameters, loading protocols and test conclusions. Emphasis is placed on observations that are specific to non-rectangular walls, which include out-of-plane buckling of the free end of wall segments and significant deviations from the hypothesis that plane sections remain plane. The importance of bidirectional loading for nonrectangular walls is stressed because the critical loading direction for design may be different from loading in the principal directions of the section and because loading along one direction reduces the stifness of the wall for subsequent loading in the direction orthogonal to the previous one.