Design and experimental study on seismic performance of RC modular superimposed shear walls with novel inter-module connection

Abstract

Modular construction characteristic by higher construction efficiency, superior quality and fewer workers on site can fully leverage its advantages in high-rise buildings with numerous repeated modules. However, the widely applied core wall-based high-rise modular structures are still labor intensive and time consuming for the erection of the core walls. In this study, a new self-supporting high-rise reinforced concrete modular superimposed shear wall (RC-M-SSW) structural system, and an innovative inter-module connector with conservative design method is proposed. The RC-M-SSW comprises of two adjacent precast module wall panels, inter-module connectors, and post-cast self-compacting concrete between the precast wall panels. To investigate the seismic performance of the RC-M-SSWs, two full scale RC-M-SSWs and a reference cast-in-place shear wall were designed and tested under combined axial compression and lateral cycle loading. The results showed that the RC-M-SSWs had high lateral stiffness, excellent energy consumption capacity, good deformation performance and comparable load bearing capacity compared to the reference shear wall. Besides, the RC-M-SSWs employing the innovative connectors exhibited a good integrity during the cycle loading, and the effectiveness of the connection was demonstrated by the strains in the connectors. Finally, a refined numerical analysis was conducted and a design approach for predicting the load bearing capacity of the RC-M-SSWs was developed and validated with high accuracy.