This study investigates the in-plane lateral stiffness and ductility of composite PVC encased concrete walls subject to the lateral loads using pushover tests to determine lateral strength and ductility characteristics of composite PVC encased walls filled with plain concrete, macro-synthetic fiber reinforced concrete (RC), and steel RC. Eighteen concrete wall specimens were cast and subjected to pushover test to determine the load-deflection curves. Based on the capacity curves resulting from the pushover tests, the yield and maximum displacements and subsequently structural ductility and performance factors according to Australian Standard for seismic design of buildings have been determined. The determined parameters as well as the initial and effective lateral stiffness values measured from the load-deflection curves for all three cases were compared and the final findings have been discussed. Based on the outcomes of this study, it has become apparent that the tested composite PVC encased macro-synthetic fiber RC walls can exhibit superior performance in terms of ductility when compared to the unreinforced concrete specimens. In addition, the results indicated that the initial in-plane lateral stiffness values of the tested composite PVC encased macro-synthetic fiber RC walls increased by 25% compared to the tested walls filled with plain concrete. In order to enable structural designers to design composite PVC encased concrete walls, ductility factors for this type of walls have been extracted from the test results for the three mentioned cases and proposed for practical applications. It has been concluded that all the PVC encased concrete walls evaluated in this study can be categorized as fully ductile structures.

中文翻译：

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复合PVC钢筋混凝土墙体面内侧向刚度及延性度试验研究

本研究调查了复合 PVC 包裹混凝土墙在横向荷载作用下的平面内横向刚度和延展性，使用推覆试验来确定填充素混凝土、宏观合成纤维混凝土 (RC) 的复合 PVC 包裹墙的横向强度和延展性特征)，和钢 RC。浇筑了 18 个混凝土墙试样并进行了推覆试验，以确定荷载-挠度曲线。根据推覆试验产生的容量曲线，根据澳大利亚建筑物抗震设计标准确定了屈服和最大位移以及随后的结构延展性和性能因素。比较确定的参数以及从所有三种情况下的载荷-挠度曲线测得的初始和有效横向刚度值，并讨论了最终结果。根据这项研究的结果，很明显，与未钢筋混凝土试样相比，经过测试的复合 PVC 包裹的宏观合成纤维 RC 墙在延展性方面表现出优异的性能。此外，结果表明，与填充素混凝土的测试墙相比，测试的复合 PVC 包裹的宏观合成纤维 RC 墙的初始平面内横向刚度值增加了 25%。为了使结构设计师能够设计复合 PVC 包裹的混凝土墙，已从上述三种情况的测试结果中提取了此类墙的延展性系数，并建议用于实际应用。得出的结论是，本研究中评估的所有 PVC 包裹的混凝土墙都可以归类为完全延性结构。