Experimental and numerical studies on the in-plane shear behavior of PVC-encased concrete walls

The effective application of lightweight stay-in-place concrete forms for casting shear walls subjected to wind and seismic loading is of particular concern to practitioners. Insufficient technical data available for new kinds of wall systems, such as Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) form walls, hinder their implementation in construction practice. To that end, an effective experimental and numerical campaign was launched at Western Sydney University to investigate the structural performance of PVC form walls when subjected to in-plane shear loading. A set of push-out specimens was designated to conduct monotonic in-plane shear tests until failure. All failure phenomena, capping strengths, and ductility capacities were monitored. Test results indicated that the embedded PVC latticed webs could efficiently protect the concrete web from sudden crushing and improve ductility capacity and failure pattern of the specimens. Nonlinear finite element analysis on test specimens was also conducted and good correlation with experiment results was achieved.