Seismic Design and Performance Evaluation of Coupled Steel Plate and Reinforced Concrete Composite Walls

Coupled steel plate and reinforced concrete (SPRC) composite shear walls have been widely constructed in the core tube of super tall buildings in seismic regions. However, relevant research progress is far behind the practical application of this coupled composite wall system. Particularly, the current seismic design method does not consider the coupling mechanism and lacks efficiency in the computation of seismic base shear. In this research, the energy balance-based plastic design (EBPD) method is developed and used to design twelve prototype structures considering different structural heights and coupling ratios (CR). With the ABAQUS-based numerical techniques verified by relevant experimental results, all the prototype cases were studied by pushover analysis and nonlinear dynamic analysis to examine the effectiveness of the EBPD method in ensuring satisfactory seismic performance of coupled SPRC composite walls. The results indicate that the coupled SPRC composite walls designed by the EBPD method can satisfy the code requirements on lateral deformation under moderate and rare earthquakes. The analytical average story shear and bending moment distribution patterns have acceptable agreement with the relevant design assumptions. Favorable CR ranges are suggested for the coupled SPRC composite walls with different story numbers to achieve good earthquake-induced deformation characteristics.