Seismic performance and design of embedded steel plate-concrete composite coupled shear walls

Embedded steel plate-concrete composite shear walls (ECSW) and cold-formed U-shaped steel-concrete composite beams (WUSCB) have recently been developed for high-efficiency steel plate-concrete (SC) composite construction. In this study, an embedded steel plate-concrete composite coupled shear wall (ES-CCW) specimen utilizing WUSCB to connect the ECSW limbs was designed for quasi-static test. The seismic performance of the ES-CCW was analyzed based on the failure modes, hysteretic curves, ductility, and stress distribution. The experimental results demonstrate that connecting the ECSW limbs and WUSCB constitutes an effective coupled shear wall configuration and the ES-CCW exhibited excellent seismic performance. A finite element (FE) model of the ES-CCW were developed using ABAQUS and validated against the experimental results. Furthermore, the multi-story ES-CCW structural systems are established for coupling ratio analysis. Based on the pushover curve, the yield sequence of each sub-component and the overall energy dissipation mechanism are investigated. Design recommendations of such coupled shear wall is proposed for practical engineering application, including the inter-story drift ratio limit and reasonable coupling ratio.