Special Issue: Blind Prediction and Postdiction Simulations of U-shaped Wall Tests. Advances on Modelling and Design of RC Structural Wall Systems

By 2060, the world population is expected to have risen beyond 10 billion and the global number of buildings is estimated to double, among which many reinforced concrete (RC) structures. The global production of concrete will therefore keep increasing – with the associated challenges regarding carbon dioxide emissions, and so will difficulties associated to RC recycling and the mounting costs of maintenance, repair, and replacement. A key contribution to addressing the above global challenges is the design and assessment of structures for significantly longer service lives; in this context, the preservation of the current seismic safety levels will require more stringent and reliable design and assessment procedures. Most of mid- and high-rise buildings employ wall or wall-equivalent systems to resist lateral actions, primarily from wind and earthquakes. Walls are also used to an increasing extent as a strengthening measure for existing buildings to control displacement demands, often by introduction in the plan periphery, and as an instrument to deploy and leverage advanced seismic mitigation technologies, usually in the form of energy-dissipation devices. The relevance of modelling and design of RC structural wall systems, which is the general topic of this special issue, is cast within the above setting.