Seismic performance of precast light steel-desert sand lightweight aggregate concrete shear wall in Xinjiang rural areas, China

Abstract: Seismic performance of rural building has posed a serious threat to the production and life of rural regions, particularly for some local characteristics of frequent earthquakes, cold climate, widespread desert, scattered distribution of rural buildings, and shortage of construction technology, such as in Xinjiang, western China. Therefore, the new type of prefabricated structure was demanding more and more urgently, to construct the high-quality living buildings with excellent seismic performance and heat preservation, while easy to gain architected materials and industrialized implementation. People living in a rural environment need to be prepared in the event of emergency. It is also significant to know the safety features in an apartment building, to keep the living and property as safe as possible. Specifically, the sparse materials environments can be a great challenge during the construction of houses in scattered habitations, such as highland desert in Xinjiang. These regional characteristics and technical requirements make it difficult to improve the seismic fortification level of villages and towns. In this study, a feasible shear wall structure was proposed in detail with a new lightweight aggregate concrete of precast light steel-desert sand, suitable for 1-2 story rural buildings in Xinjiang areas. The main purpose of seismic performance can be expected as the whole structural deformation of three kinds of wall panels for the resistance to earthquakes, particularly under the action of multiple earthquakes. The specific experiments can be carried out to meet the required needs of the region: under the action of fortification and rare earthquake, the separation of vertical joints between the walls, the shear failure of the lower wall below the windows, the bending damage of the walls between the windows, the dissipated seismic energy of the whole building together, thereby to ensure that the edge wall was not seriously damaged. A quasi-static test was conducted for two edge walls, two walls between windows, one wall under the window, and one shear wall with common reinforced concrete, in order to verify the feasibility of the wall panels in the structure when replacing steel bars with steel wires, while, evaluate the seismic performance and failure modes of each wall panel, under horizontal earthquakes. The data information can be achieved, including the hysteresis curve, mechanical curve of skeleton structure, displacement ductility, capacity of energy dissipation, and bearing capacity of each specimen. The results show that the failure mode varied in the types of the specimen. Specifically, the bending failure under ductile compression occurred in the edge wall, the wall between windows, and shear wall with common reinforced concrete, whereas, the brittle shear failure can be found in the wall limb under the window. It infers that the steel wire mesh can replace the steel bar in the shear wall, due to the approximate seismic performance index can be obtained in the wall between the windows, and the common shear wall under the given reinforcement ratio. In the edge wall, the ultimate displacement angle, ductility coefficient, and viscous damping coefficient were achieved the maximum, indicating the optimal seismic performance. The wall between windows ranked the second, and the wall under the window was the last, indicating an expected evaluation was gained for the rural building. Additionally, a recommendation can be addressed during this time: the ultimate bearing capacity of wall between windows and edge wall can be evaluated as eccentrically compressed members according to the calculation theory of normal section, for the optimization of seismic performance in a rural building.