Ibarra, L., Dasgupta, B., and Chiang, K.-T.

Paper:

Seismic Performance of Degraded Shear Walls for Long-Term Compliance Periods

Luis Ibarra , Biswajit Dasgupta , and Kuang-Tsan Chiang
University of Utah, Department of Civil Engineering 110 Central Campus Drive. Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA E-mail: bdasgupta@cnwra.swri.edu Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses, Southwest Research Institute 6220 Culebra Road, San Antonio, TX 78238, USA

[Received May 1, 2012; accepted August 1, 2012]

Seismic performance evaluations of nuclear facilities are usually based on seismic probabilistic risk analyses that do not include the effects of concrete aging, which may decrease the capacity of reinforced concrete (RC) components with time. This study relates the physical mechanisms that take place during aging of concrete (e.g., cracking, and rebar corrosion) and the deterioration of mechanical properties that affect the system capacity under seismic events. The seismic performance evaluation uses available experimental data of steel reinforcement corrosion and variability of concrete parameters as a function of time. To obtain the variation in the system capacity caused by concrete aging, detailed numerical models of RC components and models of the selected structural systems are developed. The probability of unacceptable performance, or seismic failure, is computed by convolving the fragility data and selected hazard curves. The calculation includes the gain of concrete compressive strength with time. However, this gain in strength does not overcome the degradation of seismic performance caused by concrete cracking and corrosion of steel rebars. The results indicate that aging effects on RC components are largely inuenced by seismic hazard at the site. Keywords: aging, reinforced concrete, seismic, fragility curve, deterioration, shear wall

1. Introduction
The seismic performance of reinforced concrete (RC) structures may be adversely affected by aging of concrete, which modies the material engineering properties and affects the dynamic properties, structural resistance capacity, failure modes, and location of failure initiation. The degradation of RC structures due to aging of concrete can be caused by (i) adverse performance of either the cement matrix or aggregate materials under an aggressive chemical environment; (ii) physical challenges including thermal cycling, abrasion, and vibration; and (iii) corrosion of steel reinforcing bars (rebars), which 638

leads to cracking and spallation of the concrete cover. In general, RC structural components have substantial safety margins when properly designed and constructed, but the safety margins for aged concrete structures are not well understood. Therefore, a reliability-based methodology is needed to assess the seismic performance of shear wall structures subjected to aging of concrete. For instance, nuclear facilities commonly use shear walls to withstand lateral loads and a safety and risk assessment that accounts for aging deterioration of RC shear walls may be needed during license renewal. Evaluations of seismic performance of nuclear facilities are based on seismic probabilistic risk analyses [1] that do not include concrete aging effects, which may increase the potential for failure. Several studies have shown that the number of incidents related to concrete aging increases as the facilities age [2]. This study evaluates the effect of concrete aging on the probabilistic seismic performance of structures that include shear walls as the main lateral resistance component. The scope of this work encompasses (i) identication of aging mechanisms of concrete and their effect on mechanical properties of RC components; (ii) development of an approach to predict system capacity and generation of fragility curves (conditional probability of failure) that accounts for concrete aging; and (iii) evaluation of the effect of RC aging on the probability of failure under seismic events. The evaluation relates the physical mechanisms that take place during aging of concrete (e.g., cracking and rebar corrosion) and the deterioration of mechanical properties that affect the computation of the system capacity under seismic events. Available experimental data for steel corrosion and variation of concrete compressive strength as a function of time is included. To obtain the variation in the system capacity caused by concrete aging, nite element models (FEMs) of RC components were developed. Several studies have modeled structural components to represent aging of concrete [24], but the effects on RC components usually are not extrapolated to the entire structural system. The ultimate goal of this research is to evaluate aging effects on the behavior of a typical multi-storied nuclear facility structural system consisting of shear walls, diaphragm slabs, and basemat. This paper Journal of Disaster Research Vol.7 No.5, 2012

Seismic Performance of Degraded Shear Walls for Long-Term Compliance Periods

Fig. 2. Pushover curve correlating top shear wall displacement with base reaction for calibrated shear wall model.
(a)

(b)

Fig. 1. (a) Shear wall with anges used to calibrate the model with Bardas experimental test [6], (b) Manders stress-strain model for unconned and conned concrete model [7].

comprises the rst part of this investigation and focuses on the effects of aging on individual squat shear walls. The study presents a practical method using commercial software, and includes parameters that are not usually included in this type of analyses, such as the gain in concrete compressive strength, and variability of the concrete strain at peak strength and softening of the steel and concrete stress-strain curves. The variability in the response due to uncertainty in the system parameters is obtained using a Latin Hypercube Sampling (LHS) approach. The probability of unacceptable performance or seismic failure is computed by convolving the fragility and seismic hazard curve.

2. Calibration of Flanged Shear Wall Components in Numerical FEMs

An experimental shear wall test was initially created in SAP2000 [5] to verify the shell-layered nonlinear element capabilities. A anged shear wall was modeled to reproJournal of Disaster Research Vol.7 No.5, 2012

duce the second specimen (B2-1) tested by Barda et al. [6] under monotonic lateral loading (Fig. 1(a)). The central shear wall has a length lw = 1.91 m, height hw = 0.95 m (i.e., aspect ratio hw /lw = 0.5), and thickness tn = 0.1 m. In accordance with the foundation and top slab used in the experiment, the numerical model assumes the wall is xed at the base and free to rotate at the top. Because of the low aspect ratio, the component is expected to exhibit shear failure. The static nonlinear performance was obtained by applying an increasing monotonic lateral load in the walls longitudinal direction. The vertical load only includes the shear wall self-weight. The mesh was created using the shell-layered element of SAP2000 that can reproduce the non-linear response of conned and unconned concrete. This element allows concrete and rebar layers in the thickness direction. The thick plate Mindlin/Reissner formulation, which includes transverse shear deformation effects, is used for bending behavior of the layered shell. For the RC non-linear performance, the stress-strain constitutive relationship was based on Manders model [7]. As seen in Fig. 1(b), this model captures the softening of the stress-strain curve for conned and unconned behavior of concrete. The conned behavior of RC is based on unconned concrete and steel rebar stress-strain curves. The FEM was able to reproduce the expected in-plane shear stresses obtained by Barda et al. [6]. The base shear at ultimate strength of the component is presented in the pushover curve of Fig. 2. The FEM model was also able to predict the yield displacement at about 2.0-2.5 mm reported for the experimental test (B2-1) [6], as well as the residual strength caused by the additional resistance of the anges, which were designed with a higher capacity than the central SW section. However, the displacement at peak strength, was underestimated in the numerical simulation. This curve represents the static non-linear relationship between the top of the central shear wall and the applied lateral load. The base shear at ultimate strength obtained from SAP2000 analysis was 930 kN as shown in (Fig. 2), which is within 5% of Bardas experimental test (978 kN) [6].

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