Lap splices and bar cutoffs introduce reinforcement discontinuities in reinforced concrete structures. A two-step approach was used to investigate the effect of longitudinal reinforcement discontinuities on the seismic performance of reinforced concrete structural walls. In the first step, six cyclic tests on small-scale reinforced concrete structural walls were conducted to study the effect of bar cutoffs. Three of the six specimens had web longitudinal reinforcement cutoffs to simulate the effects of a retrofit practice used in Japan. The test results indicated that this discontinuity resulted in approximately 50% increase in the unit tensile strains in the longitudinal reinforcing bars in boundary elements. Larger unit tensile strains caused an increase in permanent strain accumulation, increasing the likelihood of bar buckling. In the second step, the mentioned test results were combined with test results from previous tests (that investigated discontinuities related to lap splices) to calibrate equations for estimating drift capacity of structural walls with and without reinforcement discontinuities.

搭接接头和钢筋切边会在钢筋混凝土结构中引入钢筋间断。采用两步法研究了纵向钢筋不连续性对钢筋混凝土结构墙抗震性能的影响。第一步，对小型钢筋混凝土结构墙进行了六个循环测试，以研究钢筋切断的影响。六个标本中的三个具有腹板纵向钢筋截断，以模拟在日本使用的改造实践的效果。测试结果表明，这种不连续性导致边界单元中的纵向钢筋中的单位拉伸应变增加了约50％。较大的单位拉伸应变会导致永久应变积累的增加，从而增加了钢筋屈曲的可能性。