Experimental and numerical studies on the seismic performance of superimposed reinforced concrete shear walls with insulation

•A new type of superimposed reinforced concrete shear wall with insulation is proposed by integrating the insulation panel into the precast exterior concrete panel to achieve both bearing and insulation capabilities.•The connection method of the longitudinal reinforcement at the horizontal joints of the superimposed reinforced concrete shear wall is indirect splicing on one side and direct splicing on the other side, and the direct splicing area is moved upwards to avoid the horizontal joints. A new type of superimposed reinforced concrete shear wall with insulation (SRCSWI) is proposed in this paper by integrating the insulation panel into the precast exterior concrete panel to achieve both bearing and insulation capabilities. Four full-sized specimens, including one cast-in-place reinforced concrete shear wall (CRCSW), two SRCSWIs and one superimposed reinforced concrete shear wall (SRCSW) without insulation, were designed for use in pseudo-static tests. The test results showed that the failure modes of the SRCSWIs were similar to those of the CRCSW and SRCSW. For the SRCSWI with a lower reinforcement ratio for the boundary elements, fewer cracks occurred in the wall, while the opening width of the cracks in the horizontal joints was relatively large, which means that the plastic deformation of this specimen was concentrated near the horizontal joints. For the SRCSWIs, the precast exterior concrete panel contributed little to the stiffness and carrying capacity of the walls. For the SRCSWI specimens, SRCSW specimen and CRCSW specimen with the same design axial load ratio, the stiffness, ductility and carrying capacity were basically consistent. For the SRCSWI specimen with a lower axial force, the carrying capacity was lower, but the ductility ratio and energy dissipation coefficient were higher than those of the other specimens. Finally, solid finite element (FE) models of the test specimens were established in ABAQUS and validated with the experimental results. The distribution of concrete damage, steel reinforcement stress distribution and hysteretic curves in the numerical analysis were basically consistent with the test results.