ABSTRACT
To understand the seismic behavior of the two types of precast reinforced concrete beamcolumn joints, full-scale joints including three precast reinforced concrete beam-column joints with shape steel connections, three precast reinforced concrete beam-column joints with sleeved connections and two cast-in-suit concrete beam-column joints were tested under low cyclic loading. The failure pattern, hysteretic characteristic, skeleton curve, energy dissipation, stiffness deterioration, shear deformation of the core zone and ductility of the joints were studied in this paper. The results show that the precast reinforced concrete beam-column joints with shape steel connections and precast reinforced concrete beam-column joints with sleeved connections have the same energy dissipation ability and ductility as cast-in suit concrete beamcolumn joints. Due to secondary cast in the connected area, cracks appeared earlier in these two type joints when the lateral loading were relatively low, which affected the translation of inner force and resulted in low loading capacity of the joints. In practical projects, in case of early damage in the connected area, some essential measures must be adopted to enhance the strength of connections in precast reinforced concrete beamcolumn joints.
