Evaluation of seismic performance and effective lateral stiffness for corrugated steel-plate concrete composite structural walls repaired using bottom corner dampers

Abstract

The plastic hinge regions of conventional structural walls often experience severe damage after earthquakes. In this study, a new repair method is proposed for corrugated steel-plate concrete composite structural walls based on corner failure. The proposed method involves installing a tension–compression dampers at the damage corners. The seismic performance of the retrofitted composite structural walls was evaluated by quasi-static test. The results demonstrated that the retrofitted walls had full hysteresis loops and large lateral displacement. The damage of retrofitted walls was primarily concentrated at the corner dampers. And the bottom corner dampers can be easily replaced after earthquakes. However, there was a substantial loss in the effective lateral stiffness of the retrofitted walls. Macro finite element models were then implemented to investigate the effective lateral stiffness of the retrofit walls using OpenSees. Lastly, an effective lateral stiffness equation for retrofit walls was suggested using a parametric regression analysis.