A comparative study on the performance of different types of wallslab connections in liquid containing concrete structures

Waterstops are commonly used at cold joints in construction of liquid containing concrete structures. A common issue with application of waterstops, is their conflict with top layer of slab reinforcements. A common solution is to form an upturn part that raises the waterstop clear of the top slab bars. However, effects of these different types of construction joints on the performance of structures have not been investigated. To that end, full-scale wall-slab specimens, each representing a different type of construction joint, are built and tested under different monotonic and cyclic loadings. The performance of these specimens is compared with regards to first cracking, limit state capacity and leakage. Results of the tests show that conventional flat joint, behaves more rigidly compared to other types of joints. A non-linear finite element analysis of a typical wall-slab specimen, is also presented and its results are compared with the results of the experiments.