Shear behaviour of elongated rectangular wall–footing connections under eccentric loads

The shear behaviour of reinforced concrete (RC) plates at the junction of interior rectangular walls was experimentally studied. Four tests were conducted on rectangular RC plates that were simply set on edge supports. Walls had different aspect ratios and were located at the centre of the plates. The load was applied with specified eccentricities and was increased monotonically. The failure mode of all plates was brittle punching. Furthermore, the effect of eccentricity of loads on the ultimate punching resistance and rotational capacity of wall–footing connections were numerically studied. The results of the experimental tests and numerical studies were compared with the predictions of American Concrete Institute (ACI) and Eurocode 2 (BS EN 1992-1-1) codes. Results indicate that wall–footing or wall–slab connections having wall aspect ratios greater than 5·0 have a small rotational capacity and are not able to resist the predicted drift values specified by ACI.