A restoring force model for steel fiber reinforced concrete shear walls

•Five steel fiber reinforced concrete shear walls were tested under reverse cyclic load.•We analyzed the skeleton curve and hysteretic loops and suggested some feature points.•Feature points were determined based on test data to derive theoretical skeleton curve.

A cyclic restoring force model is a useful tool for seismic analysis of reinforced concrete shear walls in high-rise building structures. In this paper, five steel fiber reinforced concrete shear walls were tested under horizontal reverse cyclic load with constant axial load. Crack load, ultimate load, lateral displacement, steel strain and concrete strain were measured and the skeleton curves and hysteretic loops were plotted. By analyzing the shape of the typical skeleton curve and hysteretic loop, the feature points which could represent the restoring force models of the curves were defined. After the determination of the feature points and the stiffness, the calculated skeleton curves and the hysteretic loops were obtained and found to agree closely with those of the experimental specimens.