Seismic performance of prefabricated reinforced concrete joints with embedded steel plate welding connection

Prefabricated reinforced concrete (RC) beam‐column joints are critical components in prefabricated structures, and their connection details have a significant influence on seismic performance. Traditional prefabricated joints generally suffer from complex construction and uneven force transmission, which restricts their engineering application. To address these issues, this paper proposes a novel prefabricated RC frame beam‐column joint using an embedded steel plate welding connection. To investigate its seismic performance, one cast‐in‐place joint and four prefabricated specimens with different embedded steel lengths were designed and tested under cyclic loading, combined with numerical simulation. The results show that the new joint exhibits comparable seismic performance to the cast‐in‐place joint, with a more favorable failure mode. Unlike the cast‐in‐place specimen, no concrete cover spalling occurs in the prefabricated joints, and cracks are primarily localized in the connection zone. However, due to the inherent scatter in cyclic tests of concrete structures and the fact that only one specimen was tested for each configuration, quantitative conclusions such as bearing capacity ratios and ductility coefficients should be interpreted with caution and require further validation through additional testing. The length of embedded steel dominates the joint stiffness, ductility, and bearing capacity, based on which the reasonable design parameters are recommended. The effects of conversion steel plate thickness, beam stirrup spacing, and column axial compression ratio are relatively minor. The numerical model agrees well with test results and can accurately predict the seismic behavior of the joint. The proposed joint provides a new feasible solution for high‐performance prefabricated frame structures.