In this study, natural period formular is presented for a RC shear wall structure with H-, T-, and L-shaped wall sections. The natural period formular proposed by Goel and Chopra and adopted in ASCE 7-10 was modified by using the ratio of the flange and web wall area. The natural periods of structures with H-shaped wall were numerically obtained, the results indicated that the ASCE 7-10 could not consider the natural period variation according to the length of the flange wall, but the proposed formula could do. Especially, ASCE 7-10 estimated much longer periods than eigenvalue analysis, and this implies that conservative seismic design is difficult. The periods by eigenvalue analysis exist between the upper and lower bounds given by the proposed formula, and conservative design is possible by using the proposed lower bound value. In order to verity the effectiveness of the proposed method, actual residential buildings with various types of flange walls are considered. Ambient vibration tests, eigenvalue analyses, and nonlinear dynamic analyses were conducted and the periods were compared with the values by ASCE 7-10 and the proposed formula. The results showed that the proposed formula could estimate more accurately the periods than ASCE 7-10.

The current seismic design code prescribes structural wall should be designed as special shear wall when building height is more than 60m and seismic design category D. The design code for the irregular wall is not provided. Therefore, the special wall with flange is designed as linear section wall. The ultimate strain of concrete in nonrectangular section would be different form that in rectangular section, then the equation of discrimination for special wall would changed. In the study, nonlinear analysis for linear and irregular wall are performed, and concrete ultimate strain is compared.

The purpose of this study is to present the new effective stiffness of special RC shear walls with flanges. ACI 318-99 adapt the different design provisions of effective stiffness between simple walls and walls with flanges. But domestic code makes no distinction between simple and with flanges walls. By the nonlinear analysis, maximum loads and displacement are calculated. Therefore the moment-curvature curve is calcultaed by the P-Δ curve. The stiffness ratios of cracked and uncracked section are calculated by the moment-curvature curves. And the stiffness ratios of simple walls and wall with flange are compared.