Experimental study on failure of reinforced concrete building

The low amount of flexural steel used in the El Faro building in Vina del M ar, Chile, may have caused a brittle failure, leading to its collapse durin g the earthquake of March 3, 1985 Six 1:10 scale microconcrete models of th e most damaged wall of the building were constructed and tested in the labo ratory. The study concluded that flexural brittle failure associated with t he fracture of the longitudinal reinforcing bars may be prevented by using an appropriate flexural reinforcement ratio. In a second phase, to study th e three-dimensional effect of the rest of the structure on the critical wal l, a six-story 1:10 scale model of the whole building was constructed and t ested under cyclic quasi-static lateral loads. None of the tests reproduced the failure of the actual building. The behavior of the models was charact erized by stable hysteresis cycles, with acceptable levels of strength and stiffness degradation. The building model was able to sustain a top displac ement of nearly 25 mm (1.5 percent of the height), with Extensive cracking and fracturing of longitudinal reinforcing steel, but without catastrophic failure. The real cause of the El Faro building collapse could not be infer red from the available data obtained during this study, leading us to consi der the influence of some other effects, such as a possible local weakness of the wall and dynamic effects not considered in this study.