Experimental and analytical study on seismic behavior of steel-concrete multienergy dissipation composite shear walls

In this paper, a steel-concrete multi-energy dissipation composite shear wall, comprised of steel-reinforced concrete(SRC) columns, steel plate(SP) deep beams, a concrete wall and energy dissipation strips, is proposed. In order to study the multi-energy dissipation behavior and restorability after an earthquake, two stages of low cyclic loading tests were carried out on ten test specimens. In the first stage, test on five specimens with different number of SP deep beams was carried out, and the test lasted until the displacement drift reached 2%. In the second stage, thin SPs were welded to both sides of the five specimens tested in the first stage, and the same test was carried out on the repaired specimens(designated as new specimens). The load-bearing capacity, stiffness, ductility, hysteretic behavior and failure characteristics were analyzed for both stages and the results are discussed herein. Extrapolating from these results, strength calculation models and formulas are proposed herein and simulations using ABAQUS carried out; they show good agreement with the test results. The study demonstrates that SRC columns, SP deep beams, concrete wall and energy dissipation strips cooperate well and play an important role in energy dissipation. In addition, this study shows that the shear wall has good recoverability after an earthquake, and that the welding of thin SP’s to repair a deformed wall is a practicable technique.