Experimental Study on Seismic Behavior of Lightweight Concrete-Filled Cold-Formed Steel Shear Walls Strengthened Using Horizontal Reinforcement

ABSTRACT

To improve the seismic behavior and thermal property of traditional cold-formed steel (CFS) walls for satisfying the requirements multistory structures, a new type of fiber-reinforced lightweight concrete (FLC)-filled CFS shear wall strengthened using horizontal reinforcement is proposed in this study. Four full-scale specimens were tested under reversed cyclic loading to investigate the seismic behavior, including failure mode, hysteresis curve, shear capacity, deformability, stiffness degradation, and energy-dissipating capacity. Test results indicated that the restrictive effect of FLC on the studs and its diagonal-bracing effect improved the wall’s hysteretic behavior, making the wall exhibit the ductile shear failure. Increasing the wall thickness increased the shear strength, lateral stiffness, and energy-dissipating capacity, whereas installing the coupling-section interior studs enhanced the ductility. Finally, a simplified strut-and-tie model was proposed to evaluate the shear capability of FLC-filled walls, and the calculated values exhibited good agreement with the test results, but the further verification is required.

KEYWORDS:

• Steel concrete shear wall
• lightweight concrete
• quasi-static test
• seismic performance
• calculation method

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51908341), Opening Foundation of Key Laboratory of Concrete and Pre-Stressed Concrete Structures of the Ministry of Education, Southeast University (Grant No. CPCSME2019-03).

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant No. 51908341], Opening Foundation of Key Laboratory of Concrete and Pre-Stressed Concrete Structures of the Ministry of Education, Southeast University [Grant No. CPCSME2019-03], National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant No. 52078120].