Abstract

Reinforced Concrete (RC) wall buildings are extensively used in seismic prone regions. These buildings may be subjected to several earthquakes and aftershocks during their life span. Such reiterative demands generate damage accumulation in RC walls, affecting their seismic performance on future earthquakes. Buildings structured with RC walls with unconfined boundaries are of deep concern because of the large stock of such buildings and their expected limited ductility. Even though several studies have evaluated the seismic performance of undamaged RC walls, limited research has evaluated the seismic performance of priorly damaged RC walls. Thus, the objective of this study is to experimentally evaluate the seismic performance of damaged slender RC walls with different levels of prior damage. Four identical slender RC walls with unconfined boundaries were tested under different loading protocols to cause prior damage and subsequent failure of the walls. Results suggest that the seismic performance of damaged slender RC walls with unconfined boundaries is reduced by a sequence of previous cycles, if the drift ratio of such cycles exceeds 1 %. Therefore, a drift ratio of 1 % can be assumed as a threshold for repair of the slender RC walls tested on this study. © 2025 Elsevier Ltd