Study on seismic behaviors of steel–concrete composite shear walls with novel corner designs

Steel–concrete composite shear walls are common structures that resist lateral forces and are typically damaged at the corners under seismic loading. In this study, novel corner designs of steel–concrete composite shear walls were proposed based on the design concept of plastic damage relocation. The seismic behavior of the designed corner structures of the steel–concrete composite shear wall was investigated using a low-cyclic lateral loading test. The failure mode, hysteretic curve, crack development, energy dissipation capacity, and stiffness degradation were analyzed based on the experimental results. To optimize the proposed corner designs, a finite element model was developed and validated experimentally, and a parametric study was conducted to determine the effects of the length–width ratio (α) and thickness ratio (β) of the stiffer to the steel plate and thickness ratio (λ) of the corner section steel to the steel plate on the seismic behaviors of the proposed composite shear wall. The experimental results showed that the seismic performance of the proposed steel–concrete composite shear wall was much better than that of a conventional shear wall. The results of the parametric study suggest that β and λ have little effect, and α should be 0.2 to achieve optimal seismic performance. This study provides a basic measurement to improve the seismic performance of steel–concrete composite shear walls, and promotes their development and application.