Sensitivity and uncertainty analysis of AAR affected reinforced concrete shear walls

Whereas many publications report on alkali aggregate reaction (AAR) expansion or test analyses, very few address the more pressing issue of its impact on structures. Furthermore, given the uncertainties associated with characterization of the material, probabilistic based approach are not known to have been reported in the literature. This paper addresses these limitations through an analysis of a reinforced shear wall. A two-prone approach is followed: first a sensitivity analysis is performed to narrow the number of random variables (RVs) to the most relevant ones. Then, an uncertainty quantification is performed through Latin Hypercube Sampling with and without AAR expansion. Then the capacity curves (including the summarized ones to 16, 50 and 84% fractiles) are developed. Probability of non-exceedance of a specific capacity (i.e., limit state) is shown though the so-called fragility curves. It is found that in some cases AAR increases the shear capacity, while in others it decreased it. It highly depends on the initial combination of the RVs.