Shake‐table test of a two‐storey low‐damage concrete wall building

Abstract

The increasing need to reduce damage and downtime in modern buildings has led to the development of a low-damage design philosophy, where the earthquake loads can be resisted with damage confined to easily replaceable components. Post-tensioned (PT) concrete walls have emerged as a popular lowdamage structural system that have been implemented in a range of buildings. In order to provide essential evidence to support the development of lowdamage concrete structures, a system-level shake-table test was conducted on a two-storey low-damage concrete wall building implementing state-of-art design concepts. The test building included PT rocking walls that provide the primary lateral-load resistance in both directions, a frame that utilized slotted beam connections, and a range of alternative energy dissipation devices that were installed at wall base or/and beam-column joints. The building was subjected to 39 tests with a range of intensity ground motions, incorporating both unidirectional and bidirectional ground motions on the structure with different combinations of wall strength and energy dissipating devices. The building performed exceptionally well during the intense series of tests, confirming the suitability of both the design methods and the connection detailing implemented. The building achieved an immediate occupancy performance objective even when subjected to maximum considered earthquake hazard shaking. The building exhibited only minor damage at the conclusion of testing, with distributed cracking in the floors and cosmetic spalling in the wall toes that did not compromise structural capacity or integrity and could be easily repaired with minimal disruption.The test has provided a rich dataset that is available for further analysis of the building response and validation of design methods and numerical models.

Industry impact of QuakeCoRE Flagship Programme 4

“…The tests were completed on the Tongji University multifunctional shake-table array as part of a collaborative research project between QuakeCoRE and the International Joint Research Laboratory of Earthquake Engineering (ILEE). Henry et al [23] report that the building performed…”

Experimental investigation of a low‐prestressed self‐centering energy dissipative brace

“…Earthquake resilience requires not only life safety, but also rapid functional recovery 1 . To increase the resilience of buildings, various technologies have been developed with innovative features, such as self‐centering, 2–6 rocking, 7,8 , and replaceable components 9,10 . Among the self‐centering technologies, an attractive method is the introduction of a prestressing element into a conventional brace, such as a buckling‐restraint brace (BRB) or a friction brace, to provide a recentering capability 11–27 .…”

Simulation of shake‐table test for a two‐story low‐damage concrete wall building

“…In 2019, a low-damage concrete wall building was tested on the multi-functional shake-table array at the Jiading Campus of Tongji University as part of a collaboration project between the International Joint Research Laboratory of Earthquake Engineering (ILEE) and the New Zealand Centre for Earthquake Resilience (QuakeCoRE). 23 The test building consisted of UPT walls as the primary lateral load resisting system and perimeter frames that mainly carried gravity loads. The UPT walls and other structural components and connections were designed with innovative detailing to reduce system interaction and structural damage.…”

“…The test building had a double-tee precast floor system on level 1 running longitudinally and a composite floor system at level 2 running transversely. A detailed description of the test building can be found in Henry et al 23 and the test dataset is published and available for download on DesignSafe-CI. 24 The UPT walls in the longitudinal direction on Grids 1 and 3 were 2500 mm long and 150 mm thick, while the UPT walls in the transverse direction on Grids A and C were 2000 mm long and 150 mm thick.…”

“…A detailed description of the test building can be found in Henry et al 23 and the test dataset is published and available for download on DesignSafe-CI. 24 The UPT walls in the longitudinal direction on Grids 1 and 3 were 2500 mm long and 150 mm thick, while the UPT walls in the transverse direction on Grids A and C were 2000 mm long and 150 mm thick. It should be noted that the longitudinal UPT wall considered in simulation analyses was in Grid 1, and the transverse UPT wall considered in simulation analyses was in Grid A.…”