Seismic Performance of M-Section Cold-Formed Thin-Walled Steel-Reinforced Concrete Wall

Abstract

To overcome the shortcomings of traditional shear walls, structure systems have been proposed and investigated. One such structure system is a steel-reinforced concrete shear wall, which has certain desirable properties such as good load-bearing capacity, stiffness, and seismic performance. This paper proposes an M-section cold-formed thin-walled steel reinforced concrete (MCTSR) shear wall, which uses M-section cold-formed thin-walled steel to function as reinforcements. Six specimens with different permanent formwork types, axial compression ratios, reinforcement diameters, and other parameters were tested under cyclic loading to investigate seismic performance. The results demonstrate that various types of permanent formwork, including cement fibrolite plate, metal lathing, and polystyrene board can meet the requirement of related seismic design codes, construction demand, and assembly requirements, and have no obvious impact on the ultimate load-bearing capacity, lateral stiffness, and stiffness degradation rate. However, it changes the energy dissipation capacity and ductility, which are two important indexes to evaluate seismic performance in engineering practice. The failure mechanism and the influence of axial compression ratio, reinforcement diameter, and space between reinforcements are discussed. The shear-strength equations proposed by various countries’ or regions’ codes were analyzed, which can be used as a reference for related engineers and designers. Finite-element models for MCTSR shear walls were established for further investigation.