Abstract:The seismic behaviors of embedded perforated steel plate-reinforced concrete composite shear walls (EPSP-RCCSWs) are investigated in this study. In particular, two perforated steel plate shear walls and one EPSP-RCCSW were designed and fabricated based on the boundary condition and out-of-plane buckling constraint, after which the quasi-static test was carried out on these specimens. Then, the hysteretic behavior, lateral stiffness degradation, and energy dissipation capacity of shear walls were compared and analyzed through the experimental phenomena and data. The analysis results reveal that the EPSP-RCCSW realizes the two-stage design concept, which states that the embedded steel plate and the encased concrete provide lateral stiffness together under small earthquakes, and the encased concrete collapses to consume energy while providing out-of-plane restraint for the steel plate under large earthquakes. Furthermore, the reinforced concrete composite shear wall has high lateral stiffness, strong energy dissipation capacity, and good seismic performance. The force transmission mechanism of the tension band can be adjusted artificially, and the local bending and tearing caused by the buckling of nonperforated steel plates can be avoided by weakening the perforation of the steel plate. The results also indicate that the perforated steel plate specimen connected on four sides has better integrity and more sufficient tension band development. Moreover, the ultimate bearing capacity and lateral stiffness of the EPSP-RCCSW are significantly higher than those of perforated steel plate shear walls. The corresponding story drift also exceeds the limit of the elastic-plastic drift ratio of frame shear-wall structure (1.0%) with ultimate bearing capacity. Meanwhile, the bearing capacity and lateral stiffness tend to be the same as those of the perforated steel plate shear wall when the drift displacement reaches 4.0%. The viscous damping coefficient and energy dissipation capacity of the EPSP-RCCSW are significantly higher than those of the perforated steel plate shear wall. Moreover, the bearing capacity of the composite shear wall is approximately the sum of the bearing capacities of the perforated steel plate and the reinforced concrete walls. While the ductility of the composite wall is not as good as that of the perforated steel plate shear wall, the internal steel plate continues to bear the load and dissipate energy due to the constraint of the encased concrete plate.
