Seismic performance of composite plate shear walls with variable column flexural stiffness

Cyclic behaviour of composite (steel – concrete) plate shear walls (CPSW) with variable column flexural stiffness is experimentally and numerically investigated. The investigation included design, fabrication and testing of three pairs of one one-bay one -storey CPSW specimens. The reference specimen pair was designed in way that its column flexural stiffness corresponds to the value required by the design codes, while within the other t wo specimen pairs column flexural stiffness was reduced by 18% and 36%, respectively. Specimens were subjected to quasi quasi-static cyclic tests. Obtained results indicate that column flexural stiffness reduction in CPSW does not have negative impact on the ove rall behaviour allowing for satisfactory performance for up to 4% storey drift ratio while also enabling inelastic buckling of the infill steel plate. Additionally, in comparison to similar s teel plate shear wall (SPSW) specimens, column “pull pull-in” deformat ions are less pronounced within CPSW specimens. Therefore, the results indicate that prescribed minimal column flexural stiffness value used for CPSW might be conservative, and can additionally be reduced when compared to the prescribed value for SPSWs. Fu rthermore, finite element (FE) pushover simulations were conducted using shell and solid elements. Such FE models can adequately simulate cyclic behaviour of CPSW and as such could be further used for numerical parametric analyses. It is necessary to menti on that the implemented pushover FE models were not able to adequately reproduce column “pull pull-in” deformation and that further development of FE simulations is required where cyclic loading of the shear walls needs to be simulated simulated.