Study on seismic performance of a precast buckling-restrained composite shear wall system with three assembly arrangements

Abstract

Precast buildings have attarcted worldwide attention because of their significant role in the realization of sustainable urbanization. In this study, a precast buckling-restrained composite shear wall (PBRSW) system is developed, which is assemblied by multiple composite shear wall modules on site. The PBRSW system with three assembly arrangements of the composite shear wall modules, vertical, horizontal and cross arrangements, are designed and explored comparatively to mitigate buckling phenomena and obtain beneficial mechanical behaviours with experiment and simulation methods. To bring insight the seismic performance of the developed system, traditional buckling-restrained shear wall (BRSW) system and steel plate shear wall (SPSW) system are further investigated. The results show that the PBRSW system achieves plumper hysteresis behaviors, higher force-bearing and energy-dissipation capacities, and better ductility performance than that of the other two systems. Buckling phenomena of the PBRSW system are restrined effectively, and its maximum out-of-plane displacement is only 1/18 and 1/15 of the SPSW and BRSW systems on average respectively. The PBRSW system with vertical arrangement of the composite shear wall modules shows the best mechanical behavior with the highest bearing capacity and energy dissipation among the three assembly arrangements. Experimental data coincides well with those from finite element model (FEM) analysis and therefore validates FEM.