Assessment of the behaviour factor for the seismic design of reinforced concrete structural walls according to SANS 10160 - Part 4

Reinforced concrete structures, designed according to proper capacity design guidelines, can deform inelastically without loss of strength. Therefore, such structures need not be designed for full elastic seismic demand, but could be designed for a reduced demand. In codified design procedures this reduced demand is obtained by dividing the full elastic seismic demand by a code-defined behaviour factor. There is, however, no consensus in the international community regarding the appropriate value to be assigned to the behaviour factor. The purpose of this study is to assess the value of the behaviour factor currently prescribed by SANS 10160-4 (2011) for the design of reinforced concrete structural walls. This is done by comparing displacement demand to displacement capacity for a series of structural walls. The first step in seismic force-based design is the estimation of the fundamental period of the structure. The influence of this first crucial step is investigated in this study by considering two period calculation methods. It was found that, regardless of the period calculation method, the current behaviour factor value prescribed in SANS 10160-4 (2011) is adequate to ensure that inter-storey drift of structural walls would not exceed code-defined drift limits.