Seismic behaviour of reinforced concrete walls with irregular openings.

Six reinforced walls with openings of different size and arrangement were tested under reversed cyclic lateral loading. The vertical reinforcement ratio was 0.5% in all the walls tested. The results indicate that walls with staggered openings designed using strut and tie models, can demonstrate the same behaviour and ductility as conventionally designed walls with regular openings. It is also shown that the use of distributed vertical reinforcement results in more ductile behaviour of low-rise solid walls than the use of vertical reinforcement concentrated at the ends of the wall. Some design recommendation for the design of walls with irregular openings are given