Behaviour of wall segments and floor slabs in precast reinforced concrete shear walls assembled using steel shear keys (SSKW)

Summary Reinforced concrete (RC) precast shear walls are commonly used in building structures. For transportation ease, large walls are divided into smaller segments and assembled at the construction site with various connection methods. This study focussed on the RC precast shear wall assembled using steel shear keys, which is simply called the steel shear key wall (SSKW) in this paper. Three SSKW specimens were designed and built by considering different sizes and numbers of shear keys. Quasi‐static cyclic loading tests were performed to investigate the strength and stiffness of the assembled SSKWs and the behaviour of the wall segments and floor slab. We found that adding strength and more shear keys gradually increased the lateral resistance and stiffness of the specimens and decreased the distortion and damage to the floor slabs. However, the specimens also exhibited lower ductility and energy dissipation with increasing link strength. Finally, an appropriate coupling ratio for SSKWs was suggested for their design in practical engineering.