Cyclic Behavior of Reinforced Concrete Shear Walls with Welded Wire Mesh Stirrups and Lap-Spliced Boundary Reinforcement

Factory-produced welded wire mesh stirrups offer a promising industrialized alternative to conventional transverse reinforcement in reinforced concrete shear walls. However, their seismic performance in combination with lap-spliced boundary longitudinal reinforcement has not been systematically validated. This paper presents a combined experimental and numerical investigation of full-scale RC shear wall specimens with varying boundary reinforcement configurations. The specimens were tested under displacement-controlled quasi-static reversed cyclic loading, and a nonlinear finite element model was developed in ABAQUS using Concrete Damaged Plasticity and bond-slip spring elements. The model was validated against the experimental skeleton curves and then used for parametric analysis. The experimental results show that the boundary reinforcement configuration promotes the transition from flexure-compression- to shear-dominated failure and leads to a non-monotonic change in deformation capacity. The parametric study indicates that the axial load ratio has the most significant effect on ductility within the considered parameter range, whereas reducing the stirrup spacing is more efficient than increasing the stirrup diameter at comparable transverse reinforcement ratios. Weld-point detachment was observed only in the post-peak state and was associated with bar buckling or diagonal cracking. Preliminary design recommendations are proposed for the axial load ratio and stirrup details to maintain adequate ductility for the investigated wall system.