Currently, concrete wall panels have gained widespread attention from the global academic community, but there is relatively little research on concrete sandwich exterior-hanging walls. Based on relevant research by domestic and international scholars on multilayer walls, a novel exterior-hanging green self-insulating wall (EHGSW) has been proposed. Three full-scale frame specimens were constructed: one pure frame, one exterior-hanging wall frame without windows, and one exterior-hanging wall frame with windows. A sliding connection joint was placed between the upper end of the walls, while two load-bearing connection joints were placed at the lower end of the walls. The slotted hole of the sliding connections joint was limited to be 25 mm. Through low cyclic loading tests, the failure modes and seismic performance of reinforced concrete (RC) frame structure with the EHGSW were studied, focusing on seismic behaviors such as hysteresis curves, envelope curves, ductility, stiffness degradation, and energy dissipation capacity. The results indicated that the specimens exhibited flexural-shear failure at the low-ends of the RC columns and the both ends of the RC beams, leading to the development of plastic hinges. When the relative drift between the wall panel and the frame reached the limit of the slotted hole, the stiffness increased sharply. After the failure of the upper sliding connection joint, the hysteresis curves of specimens K2 and K3 were remained consistent with those of specimen K1. The strength degradation factor of the specimens ranged from 0.88 to 0.94. The ductility index of specimens K2 and K3 were between 4.51 and 6.78, it has been improved compared with the pure frame specimen K1 (ductility index of 2.89). The energy dissipation factor of the specimens varied within the range from 0.07 to 0.181.
Li et al. (Thu,) studied this question.