Investigations on the Shear Mechanism of Steel-Tube-Reinforced Concrete Shear Walls with a Low Shear-Span Ratio

This paper describes the study of steel tube reinforced concrete (STRC) shear walls with a low shear-span ratio, in which steel tubes are embedded in the web of the shear wall. The addition of these steel tubes can significantly improve the shear behavior of ordinary RC shear walls. A series of cyclic loading tests allow us to examine the failure mode, hysteretic behavior, deformability, and energy dissipation capacity of the STRC shear walls. The investigation indicate the STRC shear walls transform from entire section walls to walls with vertical slits under loading. This prevents brittle shear failure and improves the deformation and energy dissipation capacity of the specimens. A softened strut-and-slip model is applied to analyze the shear mechanism of STRC shear walls, and is shown to predict the shear capacity accurately.