Extreme events, with natural or manmade causes, such as floods, pandemics and wars, have recently brought the need to provide shelter and field hospitals in a very fast and affordable way. Prefabrication can play an relevant role in this context, by offering several advantages compared to on-site construction. The precast structural wall system is a paradigmatic example of how precast structural members can contribute to speed up construction and reduce costs. A new research project was defined to develop with the aim of delivering a new product, a precast structural concrete wall system, where the design of the wall itself and connections are key, keeping in mind not only the above requirements, but also the new demands created by the recent challenges of the construction sector. To reach this goal, first is necessary to survey the existing commercial solutions and developed by researchers and analyse the main scientific and technical documents about precast structural wall systems. Herein, a comprehensive review is presented, aiming at identifying the most relevant aspects regarding precast structural concrete walls and connections. The main advances made in the past and that are being developed in the present are also highlighted. The growing concerns of the prefabrication sector about durability and sustainability were identified as mandatory for new generation of products. To produce prefabricated solutions with less environmental impact is required, beyond the optimization related with cement consumption, connections that are easier to use, to maintain and that allow disassembly, for future deconstruction and reuse. So, innovative improvements are proposed, namely, dry connections and concrete composite walls to be addressed in future work, with the goal of correcting some of the drawbacks found in existing solutions.

The evaluation of the ductility of reinforced concrete beams is very important, since it is essential to avoid a fragile collapse of the structure by ensuring adequate deformation at the ultimate limit state. One of the procedures used to quantify ductility is based on deformations, namely, the plastic rotation capacity. Knowledge of the plastic rotation capacity of certain regions of the structure is important for a plastic analysis or a linear analysis with moment redistribution. An experimental program is described in this article. It is composed of 10 tests designed to study the moment redistribution and ductility of continuous high-strength concrete beams. Particular care was given to analysing how the tensile reinforcement ratio and the transverse reinforcement ratio influence the plastic rotation capacity of the beams. A comparative study was carried out on several codes related to the moment redistribution permitted and the experimental findings. It was found that some of the recommendations are unsafe. It was also found that high-strength concrete beams, when properly designed, have enough deformation capacity to be used in plastic analysis.Key words: structural concrete, plastic rotation, moment redistribution, high-strength concrete.