A Comparative Study on Structural Wall Design Approach of 2007 Turkish Earthquake Code†1

The current version of the Turkish Earthquake Code (TEC-07) was released in 2007 and the capacity design approach for high ductility structural walls was introduced for the first time. The practicing engineers, however, mentioned various problems especially related with the shear design section of high ductility structural walls. Because of this reason, an in-depth comparative study was conducted to examine the differences and similarities of the design approaches of TEC-07, American Reinforced Concrete Code (ACI 318-08) and various studies in the literature that focus on capacity design of structural walls. In addition to this, differences between normal ductility structural walls of TEC-07 and ordinary walls of ACI 318-08 were also examined. It was observed that in the current version of the TEC-07, several clauses related to structural wall design needs further considerations. Several modifications were proposed in order to improve the structural wall design of the current code