Experimental and numerical investigation on seismic behavior of detachable precast concrete column joints with bolted flange plate

In order to achieve rapid erection, a bolted flange plate column-column connection was proposed for concrete frames in this paper, which have been conventionally used in steel structure to transfer axial tension and bending moment. This paper presents an experimental and numerical work for seismic behavior of this detachable precast concrete column joints with bolted flange plate. Four specimens were tested under constant axial compression and horizontal cyclic reversed loading to research the reliability of this joint, including one cast-in-situ column and three precast column joints with bolted flange plate. The failure modes, hysteretic curves, skeleton curves, ductility and energy dissipation capacity are presented. The test results indicate that joint with a bolted flange plate would change the failure mode of the concrete column. A reliable welding between rebars and flange plate plays an important role in seismic performance of precast column. When the welding damage does not take place, the bearing capacity, ductility and energy dissipation capacity of concrete columns would not be affected by the column-column joint. In addition, finite element model was validated and parametric analysis was conducted to study the behavior of detachable precast concrete column joints with bolted flange plate under cyclic loading. •A bolted flange plate column-column connection was proposed for concrete frames.•Experimental and numerical investigation on seismic behavior of this kind of joints have been conducted.•The joint proposed in this paper is reliable under the premise of no welding damage of rebars and flange plate take place.