Study on seismic performance of the prefabricated shear wall with different reinforcement methods based on recycled bead steel wires

In this study, two sets of low shear-to-span ratio prefabricated shear wall specimens were constructed, and recycled tire bead steel wires were used to create different kinds of shear wall reinforcement. Two enhancement methods were proposed in this study: one focusing on the reinforcement of the concrete substrate: the bead steel wires made of truncated short straight steel fibers mixed into the shear wall; the other focusing on the reinforcement of the steel reinforcements: the bead steel wires truncated to the length of the transverse reinforcement to the formation of steel wire tendons, and the original transverse reinforcement of the wall to create a kind of ‘combined transverse stress reinforcement’. The effects of different reinforcement methods based on recycled bead steel wires on the specimens' seismic performance were examined by comparing the specimens' damage modes, hysteresis curves, skeleton curves, and other metrics using pseudo-static testing. The specimens with recycled bead steel fibers were subjected to diagonal compression damage and showed better crack arresting and deformation capacity. Specimens utilizing recycled bead wire tendons as reinforcement material experienced shear-compression damage and had higher load-carrying capacity and stiffness. The specimens with recycled bead steel wire tendons demonstrated a reduction in cracking displacement, an increase in cracking load of 7.6 %, an increase in peak load of 3.9 %, an increase in peak displacement of 10.5 %, and an increase in ultimate displacement of 10.9 % in comparison to the specimens with recycled bead steel fibers. The recycled bead steel fibers added to the concrete demonstrated a greater ‘bridging effect’, which prevented cracks from forming and considerably lessened the specimens' residual deformation. ABAQUS was used to further examine the impact of the position of recycled bead wire tendons and the simultaneous arrangement of recycled bead steel fibers and recycled bead wire tendons on the seismic performance of shear walls. When the recycled bead wire tendons were used with the transverse reinforcement, the specimen's seismic performance improved greater than when they were used with the vertical reinforcement. The specimen's seismic performance was significantly improved when the recycled bead steel wire tendons and recycled bead steel fiber were combined. This study can offer new ideas for enhancing assembled shear walls' seismic performance as well as a new approach to the use of solid waste resources. © 2024 Elsevier Ltd