## 5 Conclusions  
In this study, a new prestressing technology was proposed and used in the reinforced concrete masonry wall systems to improve its seismic performance. Four reinforced concrete block masonry wall systems, consisting of two symmetrically arranged reinforced block masonry walls, with different section types and prestressing technologies, were built and subjected to cyclic load testing. The failure mode and crack pattern of the specimens were presented, and the key parameters, including the displacement ductility, stiffness degradation, energy dissipation and equivalent viscous damping, were discussed. The following conclusions can be drawn:  
(1) There were two kinds of failure modes observed in all specimens with different section types. The cracks on specimens BMF and BMFP were concentrated on the top and bottom of the specimens, and few cracks appeared at the middle, while the cracks were distributed uniformly on the face of specimens BMFT and BMFTP, and X-shape cracks occurred at the middle of the wall. This indicated that a flexure and ductile failure occurred in specimens BMF and BMFP, while a shear and brittle failure occurred in specimens BMFT and BMFTP. Moreover, the prestressing technology had no significant effect on the failure state of the specimens, but it influenced the crack propagation, making the cracks fine and densely covered. (2) A symmetrical and obvious pinching effect was observed in the hysteretic response of all specimens. The specimens with a T-shape section obtained a higher lateral resistance than the specimens with a rectangular section, while a more abrupt and rapid decline was observed in the former in the later stage after the specimens reached their maximum lateral resistance. Moreover, the descending section of the curves of the specimens with prestressing technology are gentler than those of the specimens without this technology, and this indicates that the prestressing technology has a beneficial influence on the descending section of the specimens. Furthermore, the larger plateau on the envelop curves around the max lateral resistance were observed at specimens with prestressing technology than those without, this proved that the specimen with prestressing technology had better ductility on the other hand. However, the influence of the prestressing technology on the lateral resistance of the specimens does not clearly refer to the specimens with a different failure mode, and a greater amount of experimental data is needed to support this conclusion. (3) The average displacement ductility of the specimens varied within a range of values between 3.34 and 6.92, which is clearly related to the section type of the specimens and failure mode. Moreover, the prestressing technology improves the displacement ductility of the specimens, with an increase of about 49% for the specimens with a rectangular section and 56% for the specimens with a T-shape section. Furthermore, the prestressing technology significantly improved the initial stiffness of the specimens. Additionally, it is found that the specimens with the prestressing technology experienced a greater fall in the degradation of the normalized stiffness than the specimens without this technology throughout the loading process. Figure 12: Comparison results of the specimens: (**a**) dissipated energy, (**b**) equivalent viscous damping. (4) It could be seen that the energy dissipation of the specimens is influenced by the section type. The energy dissipation of the specimens with a rectangular section increases with the increment of the displacement, while the energy dissipation of the specimens with a T-shape section increases at the initial stage but remains stable, after drift of 2.5%. In addition, it could be concluded that the prestressing technology improved the energy dissipation of the specimens at the ascending stage. With regard to the equivalent viscous damping, it firstly decreases but increases with the increment of the drift and gradually remains constant after the drift reaches 1.0%.