Reinforced concrete (RC) walls are becoming an integral part of buildings, especially due to the requirements of earthquake resistant design. RC walls resist lateral loads induced due to wind and earthquake through both flexure and shear actions. Depending on the overall slenderness of the RC walls, one of these actions dominates. The flexure behaviour of relatively slender RC walls is better understood and expressions to estimate the flexural strength capacity of these walls are well established. Since RC walls in buildings are subjected to combined action of axial force, shear force and bending moment, the shear resistance mechanism is not similar to those in beams. But still, often the understanding of shear resistance mechanism and expressions for estimation of shear strength capacity in RC beams are used to estimate shear strength capacity of RC wall sections. The level of axial compression affects the mode of failure and the amount of longitudinal (vertical) reinforcement affects the shear strength capacity of RC wall sections. Key aspects of past studies on shear resistance mechanism in RC members are presented in this seminar. Also, preliminary analyses results are presented on effects of amount of vertical and horizontal reinforcements on shear strength capacity of squat RC wall sections.

Key words: Web reinforcement, shear sliding, diagonal tension, diagonal compression, toe crushing