Pseudo-Dynamic and Quasi-Static Testing of an Irregular Steel Concrete Composite Frame with Wing Walls

Abstract

This paper presents a series of pseudo-dynamic tests (PDTs) and quasi-static tests (QSTs) on a dual wing-walled frame system, represented here by a 1/7-scaled composite moment frame with steel reinforced concrete (SRC) columns and reinforced concrete (RC) wing walls. Special characteristics of this scaled system are irregular story layout, strong-beam weak-column mechanism and large axial load. A series of scaled El-Centro (NS) waves were used as the input ground motion for the PDTs, the results of which showed that the seismic behavior was significantly improved by the RC wing walls. With the strong-beam weak-column connections, severe damages sustained by the longitudinal wing walls (LWW) prevented the potential collapse of column, and the transverse wing wall (TWW) efficiently avoided the fragile shear failure of short columns and panel zone of beam-column joints. The failure mechanisms were identified indicating that wing walls improved the ductility for the bare frame. This study provides a solid experimental support on the evaluation of seismic behavior of irregular SRC frames with RC wing walls, which could be applied in the main factory buildings of thermal power plants (TPP).