The Nakaki Bashaw Group Inc.

Precast, prestressed wall panels comprising thin concrete sections are not commonly used as seismic shear walls. Many engineers and code officials view prestressed materials as nonductile, and the connections between the sandwich wall panels and the foundation may suffer from brittle joint failures. The authors have designed a new load-limiting foundation connection for precast, prestressed panels used as shear walls that prevents the development of excessive uplift forces in the joint. This connection allows precast, prestressed concrete wall panels, such as hollow-core, to act as shear walls in resisting seismic loading without relying on wall ductility or causing an anchorage failure in a thin concrete section of the wal