See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/361516071

Design of 3D Printed Concrete Walls under In-Plane Seismic Loading

Conference Paper · June 2022

CITATION READS
1 606

3 authors:

Mohammad Aghajani Delavar Hao Chen

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University
12 PUBLICATIONS   27 CITATIONS    3 PUBLICATIONS   2 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Petros Sideris
Texas A&M University
45 PUBLICATIONS   668 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Building Information Modeling View project

Collapse Analysis of RC Structures View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Mohammad Aghajani Delavar on 30 June 2022.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Design of 3D Printed Concrete Walls under In-Plane Seismic Loading

M. Aghajani Delavar1, H. Chen1 and P. Sideris2

ABSTRACT
Three-dimensional (3D) extrusion-based concrete printing is a novel construction strategy having the potential to
revolutionize the construction industry and the structural engineering discipline due to its rapid onsite constructability and low
construction cost. However, there is no code-based design strategy to capture structural response behavior of 3D printed
concrete (3DPC) elements to support design 3DPC structures. In this paper, a reinforcing strategy along with the strength design
equations for in-plane loading are proposed for 3DPC walls to enable design of 3DPC low-rise residential and office buildings.
To derive design equations, diagonal shear failure and flexural failure are considered. The proposed strength design equations
are validated through a numerical study on four 3DPC walls modeled in OpenSees. The numerical results show similar failure
mechanisms and strength with the one computed from the proposed equations.

Introduction
Over the last years, the technology of 3D extrusion-based additive manufacturing, simply called 3D
concrete printing (3DCP), has progressed rapidly. Although ICC-ES AC509 [1], part of International Building
Code (IBC), was developed recently for 3DPC walls and includes broad provisions for strength, durability,
structural safety, effectiveness, fire resistance and quality which are based on design by testing, it does not
constitute a code-based design procedure for 3DCP, as it does not provide any prediction/design equations that
relate material properties and geometry to component/element strength. Although major research studies have
focused on the design of concrete materials for printing [2-9], the design of 3DPC elements for structural
performance remains unexplored. Salet et al. [10, 11] used a “Design by Testing” approach to design the
world’s first 3D printed concrete bicycle bridge. While this approach is allowed in some design codes (e.g.,
IBC, Eurocode) when there is no specific code requirements available, designing buildings by testing can be
financially impractical.
Common 3DPC structures are composed of 3DPC walls. This work proposes a 3DPC wall design that
includes integrated internal RC elements together with bed-joint reinforcement to provide resistance against
axial and lateral in-plane loading (Fig. 1). Using basic mechanics principles, strength prediction equations are
derived based on diagonal shear failure and flexural failure against in-plane seismic loading. The validity of
the proposed wall design and strength prediction equations is explored through a numerical study on four
3DPC walls, i.e. two flexure-critical and two shear-critical walls.

1
Graduate Student Researcher, Zachry Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Texas A&M University, College
Station, TX 77840
2
Assistant Professor, Zachry Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX
77840 (email: petros.sideris@tamu.edu)

Aghajani Delavar M, Chen H, Sideris P. Design of 3D Printed Concrete Walls under In-Plane Seismic Loading. Proceedings
of the 12th National Conference in Earthquake Engineering, Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, Salt Lake City, UT.
2022.
 Figure 2. Free-body diagram of diagonal shear
Figure 1. Proposed reinforced 3DPC wall configuration
failure in x-axis

Analytical Model
Following a limit states approach that considers potential failure mechanisms of 3DPC walls, treated
herein as bearing walls, a set of preliminary in-plane strength design equations is proposed. Due to the
similarity of 3DPC walls to masonry walls (particularly those with concrete blocks), derivations are built upon
the TMS 402/602-16 design code. The fundamental idea is to use these strength equations within a proposed
design process that resembles the procedures followed for reinforced masonry walls. Accordingly, basic
assumptions for deriving such equations include: (1) strain compatibility exists between reinforcement, printed
and casted concrete, (2) all strength derivations should satisfy equilibrium conditions, (3) the maximum usable
compressive strain is 0.0025, (4) plane sections in the undeformed configuration remain plane in the deformed
configuration, (5) elasto-plastic stress-strain response for steel reinforcement is assumed, (6) tensile strength
of concrete is neglected, (7) equivalent stress block average stress is 0.8 f c with depth of a  0.80c .

Strength against flexural failure

In the case of flexural failure, the entire wall, including the deposited layered material, the RC frame
and the grouted cells, is assumed to react as a single element, e.g. a deep beam/column, where the plane section
assumption is applicable. The flexural strength of the 3DPC wall is computed through sectional analysis by
accounting separately for printed concrete, poured concrete and steel reinforcement.
Strength against diagonal shear failure
The diagonal shear failure is expected to start within the 3DPC wall along the compression diagonal
strut. Assuming a response that is qualitatively similar to masonry walls, several parameters are affecting the
shear strength of reinforced 3DPC walls, i.e. tensile cracking strength of concrete, dowel action of vertical
reinforcement, and truss action of the flexural and shear reinforcement. Due to the complexity of these
mechanisms, dowel action of vertical reinforcement is herein ignored. Based on the free-body diagram of
diagonal shear failure of 3DPC walls (Fig. 2), the nominal total diagonal shear strength may be computed
through the horizontal force equilibrium as:
 
Vn  0.75 Vnpc  Vns  Vncol ,i  VnGC , j (1)
i j
To preclude critical (brittle) shear-related failures based on TMS 402/602, the maximum shear strength
produced by printed layers and bed-joint (ladder mesh) reinforcement should satisfy:
6 Anv f pc , M u Vu d v  0.25

 
Vnpc  Vns   (2)
4 Anv f pc , M u Vu d v  1.0
with linear interpolation for 0.25  M u Vu d v  1.0 . Also, Vnpc is the shear strength of printed/deposited/
layered concrete, Vns is the shear strength of horizontal reinforcement, Vncol,i is the shear strength of the i-th
column, VnGC,j is the shear strength of the j-th grouted cell, and 0.75 represents losses due to the partially
grouted section. By modifying the relevant equations of TMS 402/602, Vnpc may be computed as:
  M  
Vnpc  max  4.0  1.75  u  ,1.0  Anv f pc  0.25P (3)
   Vu dv  
where P is the axial compressive load, and Anv is the net shear-contributing area excluding column area. Similar
to TMS 402/602, the bed-joint reinforcement strength, Vns, may be calculated as:
A 
Vns  0.5  v  f y dv (4)
 s 
where dv is the actual depth of the wall member in the direction of considered shear; Av is the area of bed-joint
reinforcement and s is the spacing of the bed-joint reinforcement, and the 0.5 factor represents the lower
contribution of the horizontal reinforcement towards the upper and lower portions of the wall. Diagonal shear
failure can be accompanied by shear or flexural failure of the integrated RC columns. Thus, Vncol,i is determined
by the shear or flexural failure of the columns, whichever controls. The reaction of the grouted cells (VnGC),
because they will fail in shear due to general failure mechanism, may be computed as:
  M  
VnGC  max  4.0  1.75  u  ,1.0  f c AGC (5)
   Vu dv  
where AGC is the area of the grouted cells.
Numerical Model
To preliminarily validate the in-plane strength equations, four 3DPC walls are modeled numerically:
(1) 3DPC-W1, which is flexure-critical with infill printed pattern; (2) 3DPC-W2, which is flexure-critical
without infill printed pattern; (3) 3DPC-W3, which is shear-critical with infill printed pattern; (4) 3DPC-W4,
which is shear-critical without infill printed pattern. All walls include bed-joint reinforcement (ladder mesh
wire) as the primary shear reinforcement and are subjected to the same axial force per unit wall length. The
reference system for these 3DPC walls is the fully-grouted reinforced masonry wall of El-Dakhakhni [12].
Wall 3DPC-W1 has been designed to have similar in-plane lateral strength to the reference wall, while the
remaining three walls are obtained through variations of this wall. Dimensions, material properties and
reinforcement characteristics for all 3DPC walls are presented in Table 1. Cross-section details for the first
two walls are shown in Fig. 3. The other two walls have the same cross-section details with lower wall length
[13].
Table 1. Properties of the 3DPC walls.
Specimen Height Length Width Pu Column reinforcement f'pc Horizontal reinforcement Infill
ID (in) (in) (in) (kips) fy (ksi) Each col. (ksi) fy (ksi) Type pattern
3DPC-W1 4#7, Yes
130 130 LM*(3/16”) @16 in
3DPC-W2 Ties: #3 No
120 12 60 4.35 70
3DPC-W3 4#5, Yes
82 82 LM*(3/16”) @4 in
3DPC-W4 Ties: #3 No
* LM stands for ladder mesh

All 3DPC walls were modeled using thick 4-noded shell elements (ASDShellQ4) for the printed
layered concrete together with displacement-based (DB) beam-column element for the RC frame. Truss
elements were used for bed-joint reinforcement. A three-dimensional concrete damage plasticity model
developed recently by Aghajani Delavar et al. [14] was assigned to the shell elements to capture 3D stress/strain
interactions in the concrete response. Fig. 3(c) represents the numerical model of 3DPC-W1 in which the frame
and shell elements are connected with nearly rigid elastic beam column elements. Also, 3DPC-W1 and W2 are
modeled with fixed-fixed boundary conditions (BCs) to have shear-critical wall, and 3DPC-W3 and W4 have
cantilever BCs to model flexure-critical wall.
 (a) 3DPC-W1

(b) 3DPC-W2 (c)

Figure 3. Cross-section details for (a) 3DPC-W1, and (b) 3DPC-W2.

(a) (b)
Figure 4. Results: (a) Analytical and numerical results, (b) stress distribution and deformed shape of shear
failure mechanism (magnified by 50) in 3DPC-W1 & W2 (left), and 3DPC-W3 & W4 (right).

Results and Discussion

Fig. 4 demonstrates the in-plane lateral response of the walls and deformation mechanism based on
numerical models. It can be observed from the deformed shapes that the failure mechanism in 3DPC-W1 and
W2 are diagonal shear and in 3DPC-W3 and W4 are flexure which match the predicted failure mechanism
found by analytical model. The strength obtained from the design equations is in good agreement with the
numerical results, with the largest difference (~20%) being observed for the 3DPC-W1 wall.

Conclusions
The in-plane capacity of 3DPC walls is investigated in this paper. Analytical equations are proposed
to predict strength under in-plane seismic loading. These equations are preliminarily validated through
numerical analyses of four wall designs. Analytical and numerical predictions were in good agreement. The
strength equations intend to support design of low-rise 3D printed concrete building. Future research will
pursue large-scale experimental validations.

Acknowledgments
The financial support provided by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for this
research under grant # H21691CA is gratefully acknowledged. The findings presented here belong to the
authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the HUD.
 References
[1] AC509, 3D Automated Construction Technology for 3D Concrete Walls. 2020, ICC Evaluation Service.
[2] Roussel, N., Rheological requirements for printable concretes. Cement and Concrete Research, 2018. 112: p. 76-85.
[3] Zhang, C., et al., Design of 3D printable concrete based on the relationship between flowability of cement paste and
optimum aggregate content. Cement and Concrete Composites, 2019. 104: p. 103406.
[4] Weng, Y., et al., Design 3D printing cementitious materials via Fuller Thompson theory and Marson-Percy model.
Construction and Building Materials, 2018. 163: p. 600-610.
[5] Weng, Y., et al., Printability and fire performance of a developed 3D printable fibre reinforced cementitious
composites under elevated temperatures. Virtual and Physical Prototyping, 2019. 14(3): p. 284-292.
[6] Zhang, Y., et al., Fresh properties of a novel 3D printing concrete ink. Construction and building materials, 2018.
174: p. 263-271.
[7] Ogura, H., V.N. Nerella, and V. Mechtcherine, Developing and testing of strain-hardening cement-based composites
(SHCC) in the context of 3D-printing. Materials, 2018. 11(8): p. 1375.
[8] Wolfs, R., F. Bos, and T. Salet, Hardened properties of 3D printed concrete: The influence of process parameters
on interlayer adhesion. Cement and Concrete Research, 2019. 119: p. 132-140.
[9] Wolfs, R. and A. Suiker, Structural failure during extrusion-based 3D printing processes. The International Journal
of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 2019. 104(1-4): p. 565-584.
[10] Salet, T.A., et al., Design of a 3D printed concrete bridge by testing. Virtual and Physical Prototyping, 2018. 13(3):
p. 222-236.
[11] Salet, T., Z. Ahmed, and H. Laagland, 3D printed concrete bridge. 2018.
[12] El-Dakhakhni, W.W., B.R. Banting, and S.C. Miller, Seismic performance parameter quantification of shear-
critical reinforced concrete masonry squat walls. Journal of Structural Engineering, 2013. 139(6): p. 957-973.
[13] Aghajani Delavar, M., H. Chen, and P. Sideris, Analytical and Numerical investigation of Out-of-Plane Behavior of
3D Printed Concrete Walls, in 12th National Conference on Earthquake Engineering. 2022, Earthquake
Engineering Research Institute: Salt Lake City, UT.
[14] Aghajani Delavar, M., M. Salehi, and P. Sideris, Gradient inelastic force-based formulation for damage and failure
of shear critical RC members, in 17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering (17WCEE). 2020: Japan.

View publication stats