A numerical study on the seismic behavior of a composite shear wall

Shear walls are one of the important structural elements for bearing loads imposed on buildings due to winds and earthquakes. Composite shear walls with high lateral resistance, and high energy dissipation capacity are considered as a lateral load system in such buildings. In this paper, a composite shear wall consisting of steel faceplates, infill concrete and tie bars which tied steel faceplates together, and concrete filled steel tubular (CFST) as boundary columns, was modeled numerically. Test results were compared with the existing experimental results in order to validate the proposed numerical model. Then, the effects of some parameters on the behavior of the composite shear wall were studied; so, the diameter and spacing of tie bars, thickness and compressive strength of infill concrete, thickness of steel faceplates, and the effect of strengthening the bottom region of the wall were considered. The seismic behavior of the modeled composite shear wall was evaluated in terms of stiffness, ductility, lateral strength, and energy dissipation capacity. The results of the study showed that the diameter of tie bars had a trivial effect on the performance of the composite shear wall, but increasing the tie bars spacing decreased ductility. Studying the effect of infill concrete thickness, concrete compressive strength, and thickness of steel faceplates also showed that the main role of infill concrete was to prevent buckling of steel faceplates. Also, by strengthening the bottom region of the wall, as long as the strengthened part did not provide a support performance for the upper part, the behavior of the composite shear wall was improved; otherwise, ductility of the wall could be reduced severely.