Empirical equations for peak shear strength of low aspect ratio reinforced concrete walls

Low aspect ratio reinforced concrete walls are important structural components in many commercial buildings and nearly all safety-related nuclear structures. The accurate prediction of their shear strength is important for both code-based design and seismic performance assessment. Building codes, manuals of practice, standards and guidelines, and the literature provide a number of empirical equations for peak shear strength of reinforced concrete walls. These equations vary substantially in functional form and do not account for all variables that affect the response of low aspect ratio walls. There is substantial scatter in the predicted values of peak shear strength. Improved empirical equations are developed using data from tests of 227 walls with the objective of predicting the peak shear strength of low aspect ratio walls without bias and with a small coefficient of variation (COV).