Experimental Investigation into the Seismic Performance of Prefabricated Reinforced Masonry Shear Walls with Vertical Joint Connections

Zhiming Zhang,Fenglai Wang

doi:10.3390/app11104421

Abstract

In this study, four single-story reinforced masonry shear walls (RMSWs) (two prefabricated and two cast-in-place) under reversed cyclic loading were tested to evaluate their seismic performance. The aim of the study was to evaluate the shear behavior of RMSWs with flanges at the wall ends as well as the effect of construction method. The test results showed that all specimens had a similar failure mode with diagonal cracking. However, the crack distribution was strongly influenced by the construction method. The lateral capacity of the prefabricated walls was 12% and 27% higher than that of the corresponding cast-in-place walls with respect to the rectangular and T-shaped cross sections. The prefabricated walls showed better post-cracking performance than did the cast-in-place wall. The secant stiffness of all the walls decreased rapidly to approximately 63% of the initial stiffness when the first major diagonal crack was observed. The idealized equivalent elastic-plastic system showed that the prefabricated walls had a greater displacement ductility of 3.2–4.8 than that of the cast-in-place walls with a displacement ductility value of 2.3–2.7. This proved that the vertical joints in prefabricated RMSWs enhanced the seismic performance of walls in shear capacity and ductility. In addition, the equivalent viscous damping of the specimens ranged from 0.13 to 0.26 for prefabricated and cast-in-place walls, respectively.

Highlights

Reinforced masonry shear walls (RMSWs) have been widely used in medium-height or high-rise buildings in low-seismicity regions in North America and China because of their high lateral strength, stiffness, ductility, and energy dissipation [1,2,3]
With the rapid development of the building industry, prefabricate RMSWs structures are adopted because of the advantages of high component quality, quick onsite construction, energy savings, reduced labor consumption, and environmental benefits compared with the traditional cast-in-place construction method
Prefabricated RMSWs are the main horizontal bearing components to resist lateral forces transferred from concrete slabs, which act as rigid diagrams during earthquakes

Summary

Introduction

Reinforced masonry shear walls (RMSWs) have been widely used in medium-height or high-rise buildings in low-seismicity regions in North America and China because of their high lateral strength, stiffness, ductility, and energy dissipation [1,2,3]. With the rapid development of the building industry, prefabricate RMSWs structures are adopted because of the advantages of high component quality, quick onsite construction, energy savings, reduced labor consumption, and environmental benefits compared with the traditional cast-in-place construction method. For the past few decades many researchers have focused on the in-plane seismic behavior of RMSWs and the connection method between prefabricated walls. Two distinct in-plane failure modes of RMSWs are flexural failure and shear failure [4,5]. Numerous experimental investigations have been carried out in recent decades

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Conclusion