Cyclic tests on novel steel-concrete-steel sandwich shear walls with boundary CFST columns

Abstract

Firstly, this paper proposed a type of steel-concrete-steel (SCS) sandwich composite shear wall with J-hook connectors (SCSSWJ) and boundary concrete-filled-steel-tube (CFST) columns. Five full-scale cyclic tests were performed to study seismic performances of SCSSWJs. The studied parameters were connectors’ spacing and axial force ratio. Test results showed that flexure failure occurred to these five SCSSWJs with boundary CFST columns, which is characterized by tensile fracture of boundary steel tube, local buckling in the edge tube and faceplates, and concrete crushing. The test results revealed that increasing the spacing of J-hook connectors from 100mm to 160mm and 200mm firstly slightly improves but then compromised the seismic behaviour of SCSSWJ due to early buckling of steel faceplate; increasing the axial force ratio significantly compromised the seismic behaviours of SCSSWJ. This paper also developed theoretical models to evaluate lateral peak shear resistance of SCSSWJ. The validations proved that the developed models predicted well lateral peak shear resistance of SCSSWJ with boundary CFST columns.