In this study, the SBC system, a new mechanical joint method, was developed to improve the constructability of precast concrete (PC) beam-column connections. The reliability of the finite element analysis model was verified through the comparison of experimental results and FEM analysis results. Recently, the intermediate moment frame, a seismic force resistance system, has served as a ramen structure that resists seismic force through beams and columns and has few load-bearing walls, so it is increasingly being applied to PC warehouses and PC factories with high loads and long spans. However, looking at the existing PC beam-column anchorage details, the wire, strand, and lower main bar are overlapped with the anchorage rebar at the end, so they do not satisfy the joint and anchorage requirements for reinforcing bars (KDS 41 17 00 9.3). Therefore, a mechanical joint method (SBC) was developed to meet the relevant standards and improve constructability. Tensile and bending experiments were conducted to examine structural performance, and a finite element analysis model was created. The load-displacement curve and failure pattern confirmed that both the experimental and analysis results were similar, and it was verified that a reliable finite element analysis model was built. In addition, bending tests showed that the larger the thickness of the bolt joint surface of the SBC, the better its structural performance. It was also determined that the system could improve energy dissipation ability and ductility through buckling and yielding occurring in the SBC.

Due to the recent increase in domestic seismic activity and the proliferation of PC structure buildings, there is a pressing need for a fundamental study to develop and revise the design criteria for Half-PC slabs. In this study, we propose criteria for determining the rigid diaphragm based on the aspect ratio of Half-PC slabs and investigate the structural effects based on the presence of chord element installation. This study concluded that Half-PC slabs with an aspect ratio of 3.0 or lower can be designed as rigid diaphragms. When chord elements are installed, it is possible to design Half-PC slabs with an aspect ratio of 4.0 or lower as rigid diaphragms. In addition, the increase in the aspect ratio of the Half-PC slab leads to a decrease in the in-plane stiffness of the structure, confirming that the reduction effect of the maximum displacement in force direction (max ) due to the increase in wall stiffness is predominantly influenced by flexibility.

Code-compliant seismic design should be essentially applied to realize the so-called emulative performance of precast concrete (PC) lateral force-resisting systems, and this study developed simple procedures to design precast industrial buildings with intermediate precast bearing wall systems considering both the effect of seismic and blast loads. Seismic design provisions specified in ACI 318 and ASCE 7 can be directly adopted, for which the so-called 1.5S y condition is addressed in PC wall-to-wall and wall-to-base connections. Various coupling options were considered and addressed in the seismic design of wall-to-wall connections for the longitudinal and transverse design directions to secure optimized performance and better economic feasibility. On the other hand, two possible methods were adopted in blast analysis: 1) Equivalent static analysis (ESA) based on the simplified graphic method and 2) Incremental dynamic time-history analysis (IDTHA). The ESA is physically austere to use in practice for a typical industrial PC-bearing wall system. Still, it showed an overestimating trend in terms of the lateral deformation. The coupling action between precast wall segments appears to be inevitably required due to substantially large blast loads compared to seismic loads with increasing blast risk levels. Even with the coupled-precast shear walls, the design outcome obtained from the ESA method might not be entirely satisfactory to the drift criteria presented by the ASCE Blast Design Manual. This drawback can be overcome by addressing the IDTHA method, where all the design criteria were fully satisfied with precast shear walls’ non-coupling and group-coupling strength, where each individual or grouped shear fence was designed to possess 1.5S y for the seismic design.

This study presents code-compliant seismic details by addressing dry mechanical splices for precast concrete (PC) beam-column connections in the ACI 318-19 code. To this end, critical observations of previous test results on precast beam-column connection specimens with the proposed seismic detail are briefly reported in this study, along with a typical reinforced concrete (RC) monolithic connection. On this basis, nonlinear dynamic models were developed to verify seismic responses of the PC emulative moment-resisting frame systems. As the current design code allows only the emulative design approach, this study aims at identifying the seismic performances of PC moment frame systems depending on their emulative levels, for which two extreme cases were intentionally chosen as the non-emulative (unbonded self-centering with marginal energy dissipation) and fully-emulative connection details. Their corresponding hysteresis models were set by using commercial finite element analysis software. According to the current seismic design provisions, a typical five-story building was designed as a target PC building. Subsequently, nonlinear dynamic time history analyses were performed with seven ground motions to investigate the impact of emulation level or hysteresis models (i.e., energy dissipation performance) on system responses between the emulative and non-emulative PC moment frames. The analytical results showed that both the base shear and story drift ratio were substantially reduced in the emulative system compared to that of the non-emulative one, and it indicates the importance of the code-compliant (i.e., emulative) connection details on the seismic performance of the precast building.

For fast-built and safe precast concrete (PC) construction, the dry mechanical splicing method is a critical technique that enables a self-sustaining system (SSS) during construction with no temporary support and minimizes onsite jobs. However, due to limited experimental evidence, traditional wet splicing methods are still dominantly adopted in the domestic precast industry. For PC beam-column connections, the current design code requires achieving emulative connection performances and corresponding structural integrity to be comparable with typical reinforced concrete (RC) systems with monolithic connections. To this end, this study conducted the standard material tests on mechanical splices to check their satisfactory performance as the Type 2 mechanical splice specified in the ACI 318 code. Two PC beam-column connection specimens with dry mechanical splices and an RC control specimen as the special moment frame were subsequently fabricated and tested under lateral reversed cyclic loadings. Test results showed that the seismic performances of all the PC specimens were fully comparable to the RC specimen in terms of strength, stiffness, energy dissipation, drift capacity, and failure mode, and their hysteresis responses showed a mitigated pinching effect compared to the control RC specimen. The seismic performances of the PC and RC specimens were evaluated quantitatively based on the ACI 374 report, and it appeared that all the test specimens fully satisfied the seismic performance criteria as a code-compliant special moment frame system.

This study presents a dry precast concrete (PC) beam-column connection, and its target seismic performance level is set to be emulative to the reinforced concrete (RC) intermediate moment resisting frame system specified in ACI 318 and ASCE 7. The key features include self-sustaining ability during construction with the dry mechanical splicing method, enabling emulative connection performances and better constructability. Test specimens with code-compliant seismic details were fabricated and tested under reversed cyclic loading, which included a PC beam-column connection specimen with dry connections and an RC control specimen. The test results showed that all the specimens failed in a similar failure mode due to plastic deformations in beam members, while the hysteretic response curve of the PC specimen showed comparable and emulative performances compared to the RC specimen. Seismic performance evaluation was quantitatively addressed, and on this basis, it confirmed that the presented system can fully satisfy all the required performance for the intermediate RC moment resisting frame.

A new clamped mechanical splice system was proposed to develop structural performance and constructability for precast concrete connections. The proposed mechanical splice resists external loading immediately after the engagement. The mechanical splices applicable for both large-scale rebars for plants and small-scale rebars for buildings were developed with the same design concept. Quasi-static lateral cyclic loading tests were conducted with reinforced and precast concrete members to verify the seismic performance. Also, shaking table tests with three types of seismic wave excitation, 1) random wave with white noise, 2) the 2016 Gyeongju earthquake, and 3) the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake, were conducted to confirm the dynamic performance. All tests were performed with real-scale concrete specimens. Sensors measured the lateral load, acceleration, displacement, crack pattern, and secant system stiffness, and energy dissipation was determined by lateral load-displacement relation. As a result, the precast specimen provided the emulative performance with RC. In the shaking table tests, PC frames’ maximum acceleration and displacement response were amplified 1.57 - 2.85 and 2.20 - 2.92 times compared to the ground motions. The precast specimens utilizing clamped mechanical splice showed ductile behavior with energy dissipation capacity against strong motion earthquakes.

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.

최근 현장작업을 최소화할 수 있는 PC(Precast Concrete) 건축공법의 적용이 급속하게 활성화되고 있다. 그러나 PC 공법은 시공 중, 특히 부재간 일체화 이전에 구조적 성능을 발휘하기 어렵고 완공 후에도 접합부의 일체성을 확보하기 어려워 연쇄붕괴에 취약하다. PC 건축물에서는 다양한 PC 부재간 접합 상세가 존재하며, 국내외 구조/시공 상세가 현격히 다르다. 그러나 국내 PC 시스템의 시스템 과 상세 특성을 반영한 연쇄붕괴에 대한 연구는 매우 미비하다. 따라서, 본 연구에서는 국내에서 주로 사용하는 PC 구조시스템과 접 합부 구조/시공 상세를 조사 분석하였다. 이를 기반으로 국내에서 사용되는 전형적인 PC 시스템의 유형을 설정하고 상기 PC 시스템 의 연쇄붕괴방지성능을 평가하기 위하여 비선형 유한요소해석을 수행하였다. 해석결과를 바탕으로 국내에서 주로 사용된 PC 구조시 스템의 연쇄붕괴방지 성능을 평가하고 구조설계시 고려사항을 제안하였다.

The Precast concrete(PC) modular structures are a method of assembling pre-fabricated unit modules in the construction site. The essential aim of modular structures is to introduce a connection method that can ensure splicing performance and effectively resist shear strength. This study proposed PC module using a connecting plate that can replace splice sleeves and shear keys used in the conventional PC modular structures. To evaluate the splicing performance and shear capacity of the proposed method, the shear test was conducted by fabricating one monolithic reinforced concrete(RC) beam and two PC modular beams with a shear span-to-depth ratio as variables. The experimental results showed that the shear capacity of the PC modular beam was about 89% compared to that of the RC beam, and showed a failure of the RC beam according to the shear span-to-depth ratio. Therefore, it was considered that the connecting plate effectively transferred the stress between each PC module through the joint and ensure integrity. In addition, the applicability of shear strength equation of ACI 318-19 and Zsutty's equation to PC modular beams were evaluated. Results demonstrated that the improved shear strength equations are needed to consider reduction of shear strength in PC modules.

Precast concrete (PC) modules have been increased its use in modular buildings due to their better seismic performance than steel modules. The main issue of the PC module is to ensure structural performance with appropriate connection methods. This study proposed a PC modular beam system for simple construction and improved structural and splicing performance. This modular system consisted of modules with steel plates inserted, and it is easy to construct by bolted connection. The steel plates play the role of tensile rebar and stirrup, which has the advantage of structural performance. The structural performance of the proposed PC modular beam system was evaluated by flexural test on one reinforced concrete (RC) beam specimen consisting of a monolithic, and two PC specimens with the proposed PC modular beam system. The results demonstrated that the proposed PC modular beam system achieved approximately 86% of the structural performance compared to the RC monolithic specimen, with similar ductility of approximately 1.06 fold greater.