Experimental Research on Seismic Performance of Precast Concrete Shear Walls with a Novel Grouted Sleeve Used in the Connection

Precast concrete members are often connected in the plastic hinge zone by grouting such as shear wall. Precast connection types, different construction methods, and materials will affect the seismic performance of precast concrete structures. This paper experimentally studies the seismic performance of precast concrete shear walls with a new type of grouted sleeve. Furthermore, the sleeves in the connections are grouted by two methods. One is that all of the sleeves are filled from the same grout hole wherein all the sleeves are connected together in the wall-footing joint interface. The other is that each sleeve is separately grouted from their respective grout holes. Therefore, the wall-footing interface materials of 20 mm thickness are high strength grouting material and common mortar in the former and latter case, respectively. The influence of grouted sleeve on the deformation of plastic hinge region is studied. Four full-scale shear wall specimens are designed and manufactured, including one cast-in-situ and three precast specimens. The longitudinal reinforcement of one of the separately grouted precast specimens adopts an unbonded section on the foundation. The failure mode and process, crack pattern, hysteretic performance, energy dissipation capacity, stiffness degradation, and curvature distribution of the plastic hinge area at the bottom of the shear wall are discussed on the basis of the test results. Results show that the precast shear wall with the proposed grouted sleeve has similar seismic performance to the cast-in-situ shear wall. However, the precast grouted-sleeve shear wall with the first grouting method and higher strength of wall-footing interface has a better seismic performance than the other precast specimens. In addition, the grouted-sleeve connection changes the distribution of stress and curvature in the plastic hinge region of the shear wall.