• Journal of the Korean Society of Hazard Mitigation
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• v.2 no.4 s.7
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• pp.131-141
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• 2002

Precast concrete (PC) panels are often used as retaining walls to support soil pressure. In such a case, the panels should be connected at the location where PC panels meet with a buttress. However, it is not easy to provide enough development length for the reinforcing steels due to the limited width of the buttress. If it happens, the width of buttress should be increased as large enough although it is not desirable. The critical section required for providing the development length is always located where the flexural moment is maximum. Thus it is the place the buttress width ends. Also it is the place that the reinforcing steels stressed to maximum. However, it is possible to make differentiate between the maximum moment location and the most stressed location of reinforcing steels. It means that the most stressed location of reinforcing steels, the critical section, can be moved to the other place where the moment is not maximum. New critical location will have less moment than that of buttress width ends. In consequence, the development length would be longer than that of the typical way of construction. Debonding or cutting technique make it possible to reduce the moment strength of a section. Therefore reinforcing steels are debonded or cut to have a desired flexural strength at a desired place. In this study, five test specimens in full scale were erected to examine the effects of critical section movement in PC panel joints. Test parameters were the length variations of debonded and cut reinforcing steels. The test results showed that the debonding or cutting technique could be used to lengthen the development length in the joint of PC panels.