Seismic behavior of composite steel plate shear walls with rubber-coated uplift-restrained studs

Rubber with the material property of low elastic modulus is suitable for using in the shear connectors of the steel and concrete composite structures to achieve the damage-free behavior and high ductility. Based on this design concept, this paper proposed a novel composite steel plate shear wall structure with rubber-coated uplift-restrained (RCUR) studs used in the composite wallboard. This novel RCUR stud is composed of stud shank, large stud end-plate and rubber sleeves wrapping both stud shank and end-plate. This configuration is aimed to release the shear force transmitted from the interaction of infill panel and concrete cover panel, inhibit the interface separation of steel and concrete panels and alleviate the damage of concrete. Two 1/3-scale SPSW specimens were designed, the first one with conventional unstiffened infill steel plate and the second one with the proposed composite wallboard were tested under quasi-static cyclic loading. Improved seismic behavior of the novel composite steel plate shear wall was demonstrated by experimental results of these two specimens in terms of failure mode, bearing capacity, hysteretic behavior, stiffness degradation and energy dissipation. The proposed rubber-coated uplift-restrained studs prevented damage in the concrete slab up to a lateral drift of 1/50. Finite element analyses on the tested specimen were conducted to verify the shear-free and uplift-restrained effect of the proposed RCUR studs. Designing formulas for RCUR connectors is also proposed. • Rubber-coated uplift-restrained stud(RCURS) is proposed using in composite SPSWs. • Composite steel plate shear wall with RCURS is tested under cyclic loads. • Using RCURS can restrain infill-plate buckling and prevent damage until drift of 1/50. • Shear-free and uplift-restraining effect of RCURS were evaluated by FE simulation. • Designing methods for the detailed dimension of RCURS were also provided.