Research on seismic behavior of precast self-centering concrete walls with dry slip-friction connectors

Abstract

A new precast self-centering concrete wall structure is presented, namely a set of slip-friction energy dissipating devices is installed at the wall toe. The opening and closing of the walls' corner joints under earthquakes drives slip-friction connectors to provide frictional energy dissipation capacities. In this paper, the influences of four parameters including bolt's slot length (SL), friction force, connection plate thickness and initial prestress force (fp0) of PT tendons on the seismic performance of the new precast self-centering concrete wall are systematically investigated. The results show that: 1) The bolt's SL has no effect on the initial stiffness and critical load of the wall, but the ultimate lateral-load capacity continues to decrease with the increase of SL. 2) The larger the friction force of the connectors, the worse the self-centering capacity, but the better the energy dissipation capacity of the specimen. 3) The connection plate thickness t has little effect on the self-centering capacity and energy dissipation capacity of wall. However, the wall's ultimate lateral-load capacity increases continuously with the increase of the plate thickness. 4) With the increase of fp0, the self-centering capacity of specimen is significantly improved, but the energy dissipation capacity is reduced. It is necessary to reasonably control the initial prestress level of the PTs during design, which is very important to obtain the balance between the self-centering capacity and the energy dissipation capacity of the wall for the best behavior.