The effect of longitudinal reinforcement on the cyclic shear behavior of glass fiber reinforced gypsum wall panels: tests

Glass fiber reinforced gypsum (GFRG) walls are new building materials that have been used in Australia and a few Asian countries for the past decade. GFRG walls are hollow panels that are prefabricated in factories and tailored to the design of each specific wall. The hollow cores inside the walls can be filled in situ with reinforced concrete or materials such as insulation to increase the structural strength and the thermal or sound insulation, depending on the design needs. GFRG walls can be used for various structural elements, such as walls and slabs. In Australia, GFRG walls are often used as wall panels for low-rise residential constructions, in which starter bars are inserted into the concrete-filled cores to connect the walls to the floor. The longitudinal reinforcement is therefore discontinuous along the height of the wall. The continuity of the longitudinal reinforcement is important for multi-story GFRG buildings from the point of view of both structural integrity (robustness) and flexural resistance. However, this continuity is considered to be unnecessary in low-rise residential constructions, and starter bar connections are generally accepted in practice. Cyclic shear tests were conducted in this work to study the effect of reinforcement continuity on the performance of shear-dominated GFRG walls.