Moment resisting frames located at the perimeter of buildings are often designed to provide the required earthquake resistance for the building. In some countries, these frames are often constructed incorporating precast reinforced concrete elements that are connected with cast-in-place concrete joints. The aim of such construction is to emulate the behavior of conventional cast-in-place reinforced concrete structures. Such construction incorporating precast concrete elements requires demonstration that the structure shows levels of stiffness, strength, ductility and energy dissipation characteristics that are at least equal to those of the emulated monolithic system. This paper presents results of tests on six sub assemblages typical of perimeter frames. Four units were connected at the beam midspan. The two remaining units had the connections at the beam-to-column joint region. The sub assemblages were tested under quasi-static cyclic reversed loading. The results show that the connection detail can be successfully designed and constructed to emulate cast-in-place construction.
