Experimental strain fields of reinforced concrete walls for validation of numerical models

2013 Earthquake Engineering Research Institute. All rights reserved. Experimental data characterizing both the global and the local response of components are required for validation of numerical models. In the past for laboratory test specimens, instrumentation was used to measure global displacement at a relatively few points, the deformations of relatively large regions, and strains at a relatively few critical points. Typically the strain field within the specimen was not known. Recent experimental testing using the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) laboratory at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) employed non-contact instrumentation to measure, with relatively high resolution, the displacement field of slender concrete walls subjected to cyclic lateral loading. The displacement data were treated as nodal displacements of a finite-element mesh to create strain fields that can be used to validate continuum as well as more simplified models. In this paper, the process used to compute strain field data is presented, and the strain field at various points during the test is used to assess wall response. Strain values at critical point during the test are tabulated to support model validation.

Experimental strain fields of reinforced concrete walls for validation of numerical models Conference Paper