Experimental investigation of self-centering steel reinforced concrete coupled wall panels with replaceable energy dissipaters

Abstract

Resilience of structures is already the new issue and challenge in the field of earthquake engineering. In order to enhance the restorability of concrete wall panels and further use them in steel moment frames, a novel self-centering steel reinforced concrete coupled wall panels with replaceable energy dissipaters is presented in this paper. For this purpose, subassembly tests of the coupled walls with frame beams as boundary were carried out. Four full-scale specimens were tested under cyclic lateral loads. The initial prestress of post-tensioned (PT) steel bars and configuration of energy dissipaters were varied to investigate their impacts on lateral responses of the walls. The failure process, load-displacement relation, energy absorption capacity, residual deformation and force of PT steel bars were also investigated. Test results show that the three-stage nonlinear response is characterized by the sequential failure process of wall rocking, yielding of energy dissipater and yielding of PT steel bars. The initial prestress of PT steel bars greatly affects the initial stiffness, rocking load and residual deformation of the walls. Failure of the walls is mainly concentrated on the energy dissipaters. With the increase of energy dissipaters in quantitative terms or in type terms, the capacity of energy absorption is accordingly improved, but self-centering capacity is accordingly weakened.