Load - Deformation responses of slender structural steel reinforced concrete walls

Reinforced concrete structural walls are commonly used to provide lateral strength and stiffness to resist lateral loads from wind or earthquake. Slender walls usually require large amounts of longitudinal reinforcement at wall boundaries to satisfy code lateral strength requirements; therefore, use of structural steel reinforced concrete (SRC) walls, where the boundary longitudinal reinforcement is replaced by a structural steel section, is a potentially attractive alternative. This study presents results of an experimental program involving tests under combined gravity and lateral loading for three, heavily instrumented, moderate-scale SRC slender walls. Primary test variables included varying the size of the embedded structural steel section and the quantity of transverse reinforcement provided at the wall boundaries. Although slip of the structural steel was observed for all specimens, test results reveal good behavior up to and beyond 2% lateral drift, even for a specimen with only modest confinement at the wall boundaries.