Bearing Performance of Prefabricated Composite Walls

Abstract:

A new type of prefabricated composite wall was developed， whose inner and outer steel mesh reinforced concrete plates were connected with the reinforced truss grid， and a foamed cement block was embedded in the middle of the inner plate and outer plate to be used as thermal insulation material， which could be used either as a load-bearing member or as an enclosure member， having the advantages of convenient production， low cost， and convenient installation. In this paper， monotonic horizontal loading tests and low cycle repeated loading tests were conducted on three kinds of prefabricated composite walls， including interior walls， exterior walls， and exterior walls with opening， respectively. The failure modes of the walls at two kinds of loads were the same： concrete crushing and partial steel truss and steel wire mesh yielding under tension. The results of monotonic horizontal loading tests show that the prefabricated walls have a good bearing capacity， and the peak loads of the interior wall， the exterior wall， and the exterior wall with opening are 206.16， 314.15， and 201.99 kN， respectively. Moreover， the prefabricated wall with opening can effectively increase the ductility and reduce the ultimate bearing capacity. The results of low cycle repeated loading tests indicate that the skeleton curve of the wall was similar to the load-displacement curve of the wall at monotonic horizontal load， and prefabricated composite walls have a good ductility and energy dissipation capacity. The deformability and energy dissipation capacity of the exterior wall are obviously better than those of the external wall and interior wall. Generally， prefabricated composite walls have a good bearing capacity and ductility， which can be used in low-rise or multi-storey prefabricated buildings. Finally， the bearing capacity of prefabricated thin-walled composite walls at monotonic horizontal load were analyzed using finite element analysis software ABAQUS. A comparison between the numerical and experimental results suggest that the finite element model can simulate the failure modes and stress state of the wall accurately， which can verify the effectiveness of the finite element model.

Key words:prefabricated composite walls;bearing performance;ultimate bearing capacity;hysteretic behavior