An experimental study on the flexural and shear behavior of steel plate concrete—reinforced concrete connected structures

This paper describes an experimental study on the structural behavior of the joint plane between a RC (reinforced concrete) wall and a SC (steel plate concrete) wall under out-of-plane flexural loads and in-plane shear loads. L- and I-shaped test specimens were produced to efficiently assess the flexural and shear behavior of the structures. In order to consider dynamic loads such as earthquakes, cyclic loading tests were carried out. The out-of-plane flexural test conducted on the short development length L-shaped specimen with a non-contact splice length exhibited a ductile failure mode that surpassed the nominal strength, verifying the validity of the splice length used in its design. The in-plane shear test was conducted on two I-shaped specimens varying the compositional presence of horizontal bars in the SC member. The test results showed that the capacity of the specimens was more than their nominal strength regardless of the compositional presence of horizontal bars. The shear friction tests of the RC–SC member connection conducted on the other L-shaped specimen caused the failure of the SC member and verified a shear resistance of at least 85.5% compared to the theoretical value.

► This paper confirmed the structural behavior of the connection plane between a RC and a SC member. ► Out-of-plane flexural load tests verified the appropriateness of the ductile non-contact splice length. ► The test results for the in-plane shear load showed the needlessness of horizontal bars in the SC member. ► In order to consider dynamic loads such as earthquakes, cyclic loading tests were carried out. ► Numerical analysis was carried out to verify test results and its results was compared with them.