Seismic behavior of CFST-enhanced steel plate-reinforced concrete shear walls

• An innovative steel plate-concrete composite shear wall was proposed.
• Three shear wall specimens were tested under reversed cyclic loading.
• The progression of limit states for each specimen was described.
• The hysteretic behavior and different aspects of specimen response were discussed.

Concrete-filled steel tube-enhanced steel plate-reinforced concrete (CFST-SPRC) shear walls have been proposed for use in super high-rise buildings. This paper presents an experimental study of CFST-SPRC shear walls that aims to evaluate their seismic behavior. Three CFST-SPRC shear wall specimens with varying steel plate thicknesses and concrete strengths were tested under constant axial force and reversed cyclic loading. All of the specimens experienced a progression of failure from web concrete cracking, to local buckling of the steel tube plates, to fracturing of the vertical welds at the corners. One specimen exhibited brittle failure at the end of testing due to the sudden crushing of web concrete. Stable and full hysteretic behavior was developed by the shear wall specimens, indicating a capability for stable energy dissipation. The ultimate drift ratios were around 1.7% for all of the specimens. The flexural and shear deformations of the shear walls, and the base rotation caused by local deformations in the foundation beam, all provided a negligible contribution to the total lateral displacement. The proportions of the flexural displacement, shear displacement and rotational displacement to the total displacement were around 0.6, 0.2 and 0.2, respectively, for all specimens throughout the loading process. Simplified design methods were proposed for evaluating the load-carrying capacities of CFST-SPRC shear walls. The proposed method provided reasonable but conservative estimations for the test shear wall specimens.