Single precast concrete rocking walls as earthquake force‐resisting elements

Precast concrete walls with unbonded post‐tensioning provide a simple self‐centering system. Yet, its application in seismic regions is not permitted as it is assumed to have no energy dissipation through a hysteretic mechanism. These walls, however, dissipate energy imparted to them because of the wall impacting the foundation during rocking and limited hysteretic action resulting from concrete nonlinearity. The energy dissipated due to rocking was ignored in previous experimental studies because they were conducted primarily using quasi‐static loading. Relying only on limited energy dissipation, a shake table study was conducted on four single rocking walls (SRWs) using multiple‐level earthquake input motions. All walls generally performed satisfactorily up to the design‐level earthquakes when their performance was assessed in terms of the maximum transient drift, maximum absolute acceleration, and residual drift. However, for the maximum considered earthquakes, the walls experienced peak lateral drifts greater than the permissible limits. Combining the experimental results with an analytical investigation, it is shown that SRWs can be designed as earthquake force‐resisting elements to produce satisfactory performance under design‐level and higher‐intensity earthquake motions. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.