Experimental Study on Seismic Behavior of Newly Assembled Concrete Beam–Column Joints with L-Shaped Steel Bars

Abstract

A novel concrete beam–column connection utilizing L-shaped steel bars is proposed to address the growing demand for prefabricated buildings and to ensure good seismic performance in such beam–column structures. After positioning two prefabricated beams with L-shaped tendons into the designated connection points at the top and bottom of the columns, concrete is poured into the post-cast section of the joint and the composite beam area, realizing a connection between the beams and columns. Quasi-static tests were performed on four combined backbone curves and one cast-in-place joint to investigate their failure modes and stress mechanisms. Through low-cycle repeated loading tests, it is found that measures such as increasing the area of the post-cast concrete in the joint area, the length of the L-shape, and the concrete strength in the composite beam area can effectively improve the bonding ability between the post-cast area of the joint specimens and the precast members, to improve the ductility performance, energy dissipation capacity, and bearing capacity of the joint specimens. The initial stiffness of the joint can be effectively improved by presetting the steel pipe in the column. Concurrently, the finite element method (FEM) was employed for parameter analysis. By integrating the test and FEM results, an equation for calculating the shear capacity of the connection was derived. The findings demonstrate that the hysteresis curve of the newly assembled joints is full, and its overall performance index is roughly the same as that of the cast-in-place joints. Additionally, enhancing the post-casting area of concrete, the length of the L-shaped bars, the concrete strength in the composite beam region, the axial compression ratio, or the steel tube dimensions can effectively improve the overall performance. The derived equation for the shear-bearing capacity of the connection satisfies design and application requirements.