Precast reinforced concrete shear walls: State of the art review

Expeditious urbanization and population rise around the globe has fostered the need of speedy and efficient construction, thus generating immense pressure on the construction industry to introduce an efficacious construction technique. The issue can be addressed by precast technology, which is advantageous over conventional monolithic construction in regards to speed, safety, and quality control along with reduced construction cost on mass scale production. However, precast reinforced concrete (RC) buildings have experienced severe damage during the past earthquakes, attributed to seismic behavior of connections between components. Thus, it is of utmost importance to improve the joint connection details and deploy seismic resisting features in precast buildings, such as provision of precast shear walls. Researchers across the world have performed extensive experimental studies to evaluate the response of precast RC walls under lateral loading. This paper reviews on general concepts, codal provisions, precast RC wall connections, review of experimental findings, and effect of post-tensioning on precast RC walls.