This paper presents the results of a series of shake-table tests on a half-scale, four-storey building with reinforced concrete and unreinforced masonry walls. Due to the lack of reference tests, the seismic behaviour of such mixed structures is poorly understood. The test unit was subjected to several runs of increasing intensity yielding performance states between minor damage and near collapse. Before the test, the expected peak table accelerations leading to different limit states were estimated using the capacity spectrum method, and the predicted values corresponded rather well to actual sustained accelerations. Next to these analyses, the paper describes the test unit, instrumentation and input motion, and comments on the response of the mixed structure in terms of damage evolution and global response quantities, such as force-displacement response and drift and acceleration profiles. The raw and post-processed data sets are made publically available, and all relevant information with regard to data organisation and post-processing procedure is described in an appendix to this paper. The test serves therefore as a benchmark for the validation of numerical models of such mixed structures. The project aims at providing a foundation for the development of seismic design and assessment methods of mixed structures, which are currently not covered by structural codes, including Eurocode 8.
Precast wall-slab-wall buildings can be found in many different earthquake-prone areas of the world. This type of building structure features no beams or columns but rather precast walls and slabs alone that are joined together by means of steel connectors and mortar, both of which will not necessarily prevent the formation of relative sliding between structural members when the structure is subjected to certain levels of horizontal excitation, rendering them particularly vulnerable to seismic loading. Given the scarce amount of information/data on the seismic behavior of these structures, a dynamic shake-table test was undertaken to investigate the response/performance of a full-scale two-story reinforced precast concrete wall-slab-wall structure, up to incipient/near collapse. The building mock-up was subjected to five test runs of progressively increased intensity and collapsed because of failure of the steel connectors used to join the longitudinal and transverse walls. Test data are openly available and archived at the Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure DesignSafe Data Depot.
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