Seismic Retrofit of Deficient Reinforced Concrete Shear Walls using Fibre-Reinforced Polymer Sheets: Experimental Study and Tube Anchor Design

Despite the recent advances in earthquake resistant design of reinforced concrete structures, there is still a large existing stock of shear wall structures designed according to older less stringent design standards which are potentially at risk of suffering severe damage under moderate to large earthquakes. In this study, the effectiveness of applying FRP sheets to enhance the seismic performance of deficient reinforced concrete shear walls is evaluated. These walls exhibit brittle shear behaviour due to insufficient shear reinforcement and poor confinement of the boundary elements in their design, leading to poor seismic performance. A crucial component of this FRP retrofitting system is an innovative tube anchor system. Finite-element studies conducted to investigate the performance characteristics of the tube anchor system are presented. Experimental results confirm the ability of the FRP retrofitting system to increase in-plane stiffness, flexural strength, ductility and energy dissipation capacity in shear deficient wall specimens.