ABSTRACT
Recently the topic of the progressive collapse of concrete structures has received extensive attention. With the worldwide adoption of precast concrete structures, the collapse resistance performance of precast concrete structures is of high importance. In this paper, two 1:2 scaled precast concrete beam-column subassemblies were designed, fabricated and experimentally studied. The main factor considered herein is the role of the additional connecting steel bars. By result analysis, it is found that the existence of the additional steel bars has little influence on the resistance mechanisms i.e. the compressive arch mechanism and the tensile catenary mechanism. Moreover, it is found that the additional steel bars significantly improve the collapse resistance of the specimens. In this study, an increase of 28% in the compressive arch action stage and an increase of 76% in the tensile catenary action stage were observed.
