Experimental study on seismic behavior of precast concrete sandwich shear walls under high axial compression ratio

Abstract

To shed light on the seismic behavior of precast concrete sandwich shear walls (PCSSWs) in high-rise buildings, reversed cyclic loading test were conducted on eight full-scale shear wall specimens under high axial compression ratio. Totally four variables were considered in the test, i.e. type of shear wall (PCSSW, non-insulated precast concrete shear wall (PCSW), cast-in-place (CIP) shear wall), location of insulation layer (off-center or center in the section), confinement at boundary elements (with or without confined core), and details of grouted sleeve connection (double or single row of grouted sleeves). Note that in this paper the PCSSWs with off-centered insulation layer had confined cores at boundary elements while steel stirrups for additional confinement were not used in the PCSSWs with centered insulation. Test results revealed that the PCSSWs showed failure mode, hysteresis loops, loading capacities and displacement ductility similar to PCSW and CIP specimens. The loading capacities of PCSSWs and CIP specimen increased by 8.2 % ∼12.4 % because of the confined core at boundary elements. The displacement ductility of specimens with confined boundary elements varied from 2.35 to 2.65, which was higher than that of the specimens with unconfined boundary elements (1.75 ∼ 2.10). Besides, the number of rows of grouted sleeves had minor effect on hysteretic response of specimens. Based on the test results, a quadrilinear degradation restoring force model was proposed.