Strength and stiffness estimation of damaged reinforced concrete shear walls using crack patterns
Hamid M. Madani, Kiarash M. Dolatshahi
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to estimate the stiffness and strength of damaged rectangular reinforced concrete shear walls after an earthquake using surface crack patterns. Assessing the damage severity of buildings after an earthquake is an important part of the emergency inspection operation of buildings. Expert inspectors tag buildings into two categories of safe or unsafe that are usually affected by subjective decisions, which may result in catastrophic events reported in previous earthquakes. In this research, an extensive database on the images of damaged rectangular reinforced concrete shear walls (RCSWs) is collected and used to develop predictive equations for updated stiffness and strength of damaged walls. Based on the crack patterns extracted from images of the shear walls in different loading states, empirical relationships for predicting reserved strength and stiffness of damaged RCSWs are proposed. These equations are developed based on the fractal quantities of surface crack patterns and structural data for various possible scenarios using symbolic and Bayesian regression. Finally, a damage index is proposed based on the crack pattern of RCSWs that can be used for automated post-earthquake evaluation of buildings.