Seismic behavior of steel reinforced precast concrete shear wall with replaceable energy dissipators

To improve the seismic performance of the precast shear walls, a steel-reinforced precast concrete shear wall with replaceable low-yield-point (LYP) steel energy dissipators (SPCE-Wall) was developed. The design approach and analytical model of SPCE-Wall which applied equivalent fiber elements to simulate the steel-reinforced precast concrete panel and fiber element to simulate the LYP steel were adopted in the study. After validating the analytical finite model, the seismic behavior of the SPCE-Wall and parametric study were performed in OpenSees. The results indicated that SPCE-Wall exhibits an enhanced bearing capacity, energy dissipation capability and initial lateral stiffness under monotonic and cyclic loading compared with the steel-reinforced concrete wall without energy dissipators. The relative energy dissipation ratio of the SPCE-Wall exceeds 0.125, which satisfies the ACI ITG T5.1 recommendation to avoid the long-term oscillation of the structure resulting from inadequate damping. Parametric study analysis shows that the bearing capacity of the SPCE-Wall is affected by the axial compression ratio, length of the wall panel and the steel area including channel steel, steel bars and LYP plates. And the displacement ductility of the wall is considerably influenced by several structural properties including axial compression ratio, length of the wall and diagonal angle steel.