Post-tensioned Concrete Shear Wall

A post-tensioned concrete shear wall can be simply described as a conventional concrete shear wall in which about 50% of the vertical reinforcing bars are replaced with an equivalent amount of high strength cable that is tensioned after the wall is constructed. The addition of the post-tensioned cables modifies the design, detailing, and behavior of the wall as follows: 1. Allows the mild steel reinforcing to yield during a seismic event yet has sufficient restoring force to bring the wall back to plumb following the seismic event. Simply put, the wall will self-center. 2. The yielding of the mild reinforcing steel during a seismic event provides added damping to the structure improving its performance. 3. Increases the overall stiffness of the wall improving seismic performance. 4. Allows the engineer to set the performance level of the structure by controlling the drift limits via the amount of post-tensioning used. 5. Reduces mild steel congestion improving construction efficiency.