The paper introduces an experimental program for the newly developed vertical joints between Precast Concrete (PC) walls to improve their in-plane shear capacity. Compared to the existing vertical joints, two types of vertical joints were developed by increasing the transverse reinforcement ratio and improving frictional force at the joint interface. A total of four specimens including the Reinforced Concrete (RC) wall and PC walls with developed vertical joints were designed and constructed. The constructed specimens were experimentally investigated through monotonic shear tests. The observed damage, load-deformation relationship, strain and strength are investigated and compared with the cases of RC wall specimen. Experimental results indicate that the maximum force and initial stiffness of the PC wall with proposed vertical joints were decreased by comparing with those of RC wall. However, the ultimate displacement increased by up to 217.30% compared to the RC wall specimen. In addition, brittle failure did not occurred and relatively few cracks and damages occurred.

Generally the non-bearing walls in apartment buildings in Korea are not considered as a lateral force resisting members for the design consideration. This engineering practice caused large crack damages and brittle fractures of the non-bearing walls when subjected to Pohang earthquakes in 2017 since those have not been designed for seismic loading. In this study, finite element analysis was conducted for slot type non-bearing wall connection system to reduce damages and concentrate damages to the designated damping device through separation from the structural wall members. Steel plate and dowel bar systems designed for the dissipation of seismic energies were modeled and analyzed to investigate the damage reductions. Finally, the test result and the analysis result were compared and verified.

This study introduces a newly developed PC non-bearing wall system to prevent the damage of RC wall-type apartments that have been heavily damaged by the 2017 Pohang Earthquake. In order to evaluate the performance of the developed PC non-bearing wall system, a static cyclic test is conducted. The prototype of test specimen is from the RC wall-type apartment which has been severely damaged by the 2017 Pohang Earthquake. The specimen with the conventional non-bearing wall system showed the similar damage of RC wall type apartment suffered from the Pohang Earthquake. In case of the specimen with the developed PC non-bearing wall system, cracks and damages were not transmitted between the walls due to the seismic slit and there were almost no cracks in the non-bearing walls. Therefore, the proposed non-bearing wall system, separated from the structural walls, could prevent spreading cracks to bearing walls and make it possible to effectively control damage due to earthquake loads.