Behavior of precast ferrocement walls under cyclic loading

This research proposes two different configurations of precast ferrocement walls tested under cyclic load conditions, so as to evaluate their seismic performance and potential ap-plication to the mass production of dwelling houses. The ferrocement precast walls have been built in a sandwich-type configuration made-up of layers of welded wire mesh or re-inforced bars, hexagonal wire mesh, along with an empty core. A total of four full-scale walls were tested under cyclic loading conditions; from those results the sufficiency of the system was evaluated in terms of shear strength, ductility, energy dissipation, damping and crack patterns. The study shows that these novel configurations of ferrocement walls can be applied in susceptible earthquake regions because of their high energy dissipation, stiff-ness and low strength degradation properties.