Behaviour of Precast Portal Frame Constructed With Wet Connections: An Experimental Study

Abstract

Precast concrete construction is being adopted worldwide including India during recent past. In precast concrete construction all the components of structures are produced in controlled environment and it is being transported to the site. At site such individual components are connected appropriately. This leads to many advantages like minimizing cast in place concrete, reduced amount of waste, less requirement of formwork, scaffolding and skilled labors, massive production with better quality, faster construction etc. But connections are the most critical elements of any precast structure, because in past major collapse of precast structure took place because of connection failure. In this study, behavior of two different reduced scaled precast portal frames are studied and its performance is compared with monolithic portal frame. Precast portal frames are constructed by adopting different connection detailing. In precast portal frame-1, precast column with concrete corbel and precast beam are cast separately and connection is carried out at beam column junction. For precast portal frame-2, connection is provided away from the beam column junction. Performance of portal frames are evaluated on the basis of ultimate load carrying capacity and deflection measured along the length of the beam. From the results, it is observed that precast portal frames are capable to resist higher load as compared to monolithic portal frame, with lesser deflection.