| dc.description.abstract | In this paper, the seismic torsional behavior of reinforced concrete walls has been studied
experimentally. Reinforced concrete walls having 7, 6, and 5 aspect ratios have been produced
on a 1/2 scale. Three specimens have been produced from each aspect ratio. In addition
to these specimens, a reference specimen having a 6 aspect ratio has been produced.
The reference specimen test has been used for determining the loading protocol. It has
been tried to determine optimum load increase by changing load increments in the reference
specimen test. Thus, ten seismic torsion tests have been carried out by using these
specimens. The main purpose of the tests is to experimentally investigate the pure seismic
torsional behavior of reinforced concrete walls which are under axial load. Moreover, it
has been aimed to investigate the effects of the aspect ratio on torsional behavior using
the tests. As a result of the study; cracking and maximum torsional moments, torque-twist
angle curves, torsional stiffnesses, energy consumptions, damage patterns of the reinforced
concrete walls have been obtained. It is observed from the results that the reinforced
concrete walls having large cross-sections have greater torsional strengths and torsional
stiffnesses. The average cracking and maximum torsional moments have increased 65.7%
and 45.5% as the aspect ratio increased from 5 to 7. Furthermore, a significant decrease
of torsional stiffness of the reinforced concrete walls has occurred with the occurrence of
torsional cracking. The average ratios of post-cracking torsional stiffness to pre-cracking
torsional stiffness have been calculated as 0.0781, 0.0922, and 0.0843 for the walls with
5, 6, and 7 aspect ratios, respectively. It has been concluded to study that choosing the
aspect ratio of 5 or 6 would be appropriate in terms of torsional behavior. | tr |
