Recent advances and experimental findings on the structural behaviour of an innovative dry-assembled precast concrete wall system

The paper presents the evolution of the research related to the structural behaviour of an innovative dry-assembled precast concrete wall system named Domus® performed over the last 10 years. This system is made with hollow bearing walls which can be fully prefabricated and assembled in-situ through dry joints. The wall element, named Master®, has been experimentally tested under simulated earthquake loadings as a bracing wall into a full-scale 3-storey precast building prototype with regard to its flexural performance within the framework of the Safecast (FP7-SME-2007-2 with GA 218417/2009) European research project. The preliminary results of a recent test programme concerning the mechanical characterisation of (a) the shear behaviour of a single wall modulus, which is peculiar due to the presence of the hollow cavities and of the discrete mechanical wall-to-wall (or foundation) vertical connections, and (b) the shear behaviour of mechanical wall-to-wall horizontal connections are also presented. This experimental programme has been carried out within the framework of a joint research between Politecnico di Milano and DLC Consulting-Milan aimed at the exploitation of a registered invention patent and has been partially funded by the programme “Brevetti+” (g.u. 179 of 02/08/2011).