Cyclic Lateral Testing of Precast Concrete T-Walls in Fast Low-Rise Construction

An innovative precast concrete (PC) T-wall panel system was developed to enhance constructibility and lateral load resistance of fasttrack, low-rise buildings. The system consists of bolt-type connections between PC wall panels and emulated cast-in-place joints between the flange-wall and web-wall components. To confirm its lateral-load-resisting and seismic performance, reversed cyclic tests of two two-thirds-scale PC T-walls with and without diagonal reinforcing bars were conducted under displacement control. Test results showed that the T-wall specimen without diagonal reinforcement performed reasonably well in terms of lateral stiffness, strength, and ductility, except for slip behavior. On the other hand, the use of supplementary diagonal reinforcement in each panel adversely affected the lateral ductility and energy dissipating capacity. All the details of the bolt-type connections between the lower and upper panels proved to be robust and practical. Finally, simplified prediction methods for strength and displacement are presented that can be used to develop design guidelines.

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