  Post-earthquake damage evaluation has indicated that although the buildings
with shear walls exhibited an appropriate overall performance in the recent
severe earthquakes, in some cases, however, the columns and the shear walls
were damaged, due to the presence of short structural elements and inadequate
transverse reinforcement. Such memories amongst engineers have promoted this
attitude that the shear walls structures exhibit a brittle overall performance.
So the conviction that shear walls are inherently brittle still prevails
amongst engineers, and therefore, they usually prefer to choose
moment-resisting RC frames without shear walls. For getting an insight into the
nonlinear behavior of RC shear walls, we have reviewed the experiments
conducted on the RC shear walls. Besides, through using the post-earthquake
reports written after major earthquakes, we have checked and scrutinized the
seismic performance of RC frames equipped with shear walls too. Investigations
performed on the nonlinear behavior of the shear walls have demonstrated that
slender shear walls, designed to fail in flexural mode, could safely dissipate
excitations energy of the earthquakes. These studies also revealed that even
squat shear walls can be designed in a way that their behavior would be similar
to those of the slender walls. Considering these matters, designed shear walls
according to the recent codes maintain sufficient shear strength and
respectable energy dissipation capability.
