Experimental investigation of a locally prestressed precast concrete wall

The posttensioned (PT) tendons in a prestressed precast wall (PPW) may suffer yielding or damage under rare earthquake events, increasing the potential demand for their maintenance and renewal. A locally PPW (LPPW) with PT tendons arranged only in the lower stories was developed in this article to facilitate the replacement of the PT tendons. Quasi‐static tests were conducted to investigate the seismic performance of the LPPW with and without additional energy dissipaters. The test results demonstrated that the LPPW featured a stable hysteretic response and an excellent self‐centering capacity. The dissipaters effectively improved the energy dissipation capacity of the LPPW and preserved its self‐centering capacity. Numerical studies were further performed to address the influence of the layout of the PT tendons and dissipaters. The numerical results showed that reducing the height of the upper anchorage points of the PT tendons could increase the bearing capacity and postyielding stiffness of the LPPW. The concrete contact force at the base joint could be reduced by about 40% by moving the dissipaters from center to edge regions of the cross‐section of the wall.