Experimental Investigation on Full-Scale Shear-Critical 3D Printed Concrete Walls Subjected to In-Plane Cyclic Loading

Additive construction (AC) methods, such as concrete 3D printing, have been receiving growing attention. While early applications of 3D printed concrete (3DPC) structures, particularly for residential construction, have mostly focused on areas of low or negligible seismicity, there is an increasing interest for applications in earthquake-prone areas. Recently, a new 3DPC wall design, termed as RC-framed 3DPC wall, was introduced for applications in the seismic-force-resisting system of low-rise 3DPC buildings. The RC-framed 3DPC walls are typically reinforced by an internal RC frame and by interlayer reinforcement and can be designed to be flexure-critical or shear-critical. This paper discusses the findings of an experimental study that evaluated the performance of two shear-critical RC-framed 3DPC walls, one with and one without printed infill (webbing). Both walls were subjected to constant vertical load simulating gravity effects and reversed in-plane lateral cyclic displacement–controlled loading of progressively increasing magnitude simulating seismic effects. While both 3DPC walls achieved similar strength, in accordance with their target design, the 3DPC wall with printed infill exhibited higher stiffness and a higher equivalent viscous damping ratio. The experimental data further enabled validation of recently proposed strength equations that were found to be capable of predicting the strength of both walls with accuracy within 1%. This study is expected to contribute to developing design methodologies for 3D printed concrete structures.