Experimental research on seismic behavior of reinforcedconcrete shear wall with construction joint

In order to study the influence of construction joint on seismic behavior of reinforced concrete shear wall, a series of shear walls were tested under cyclic loading. The hysteretic curve, ultimate load, deformability, energy dissipation, stiffness degradation and damage characteristic were analyzed based on the experimental study. The results show that the failure modes are almost the same, the law of crack propagation with construction joint is obviously different from that without construction joint, the initial crack and through crack of the specimen with construction joint lies at the position of the construction joint，thus appears randomly for wall without construction joint. The bearing capacity of the specimen without construction joint is higher than the specimen with construction joint when the axial compression ratio is low. With higher axial compression ratio, the bearing capacity of specimen without construction joint is lower than that with construction joint due to the contribution of axial load. But the former is better than the latter in terms of the energy dissipation, stiffness and ductility. The energy dissipation increases with the reinforcement ratio, but has little influence on stiffness. With the increment of axial compression ratio, the ductility decreases, energy dissipation grows and stiffness degrades faster.