Load carrying capacity of keyed joints reinforced with high strength wire rope loops

Vertical shear connections between precast concrete wall elements are usually made as keyed joints reinforced with overlapping U-bars. The overlapping
U-bars form a cylindrical core in which the locking bar is placed and the connection is subsequently grouted with mortar. A more construction friendly shear connection can be obtained by replacing the U-bars with high strength looped wire ropes. The wire ropes have the advantage of being flexible (they have virtually no bending stiffness) which makes installation of wall elements much easier. The looped wire ropes are usually pre-installed in so-called wire boxes which are embedded in the precast wall elements. Once the joint is grouted with mortar, the boxes will function as shear keys and the overlapping wire loops will function as transverse reinforcement that replaces the U-bars.
This paper presents a rigid-plastic upper bound model to determine the shear capacity of wire loop connections. Tests have shown that the shear capacity
of such joints – due to the relatively high tensile strength of the wire ropes - is more prone to be governed by fracture of the joint mortar in combination with yielding of the locking bar. To model this type of failure, so-called multi-body mechanisms have to be considered. It is shown that calculations based on multi-body mechanisms lead to results that agree well with experiments.