Journal of Constructional Steel Research 103 (2014) 148–158

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Constructional Steel Research

Deformation capacity of concrete-filled steel plate composite shear walls

Hong-Song Hu a, Jian-Guo Nie a,⁎, Matthew R. Eatherton b
a
Key Laboratory of Civil Engineering Safety and Durability of China Education Ministry, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
b
Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Composite shear walls are becoming popular in high-rise buildings for their high load-carrying and deformation
Received 30 January 2014 capacities. The deformation capacity of composite shear walls is a key response characteristic for seismic resis-
Accepted 27 August 2014 tance, and depends on a complex interaction of geometric and material properties, which needs to be explored.
Available online xxxx
Based on a fiber section analysis approach using refined material constitutive models, an analysis program was
developed to analyze the moment–curvature behavior of concrete-filled steel plate composite shear walls. The
Keywords:
Concrete-filled steel plate composite shear
accuracy of the program was verified against available test results. A parametric study was then performed on
walls 6379 configurations to study the effect of variables such as axial compression ratio, concrete strength, steel con-
Deformation capacity tent ratio, and boundary element concrete confinement on the deformation capacity of the concrete-filled steel
Axial compression ratio plate composite wall cross sections. The results were analyzed to develop simplified formulas based on geometric
Ultimate curvature and material inputs for calculating the ultimate curvature which was defined as the curvature associated with a
Ductility 15% loss in moment capacity. The formulas for calculating the ultimate curvature can be further used to calculate
the drift capacities and ductility of composite shear walls.
© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The frame–core tube structural system [1] is a special case of frame-
wall structures, in which the core tube sustains the majority of seismic
forces, while the perimeter frames are mainly responsible for the verti-
cal loads and ensure the integrity of the structure. The frame–core tube
structural system has been widely used in high-rise buildings for its su-
perior seismic behavior and good flexibility for architectural planning.
Since the core tube sustains the majority of the seismic action and
plays a significant role in the energy dissipation, the individual structural
walls in the core tube are the most critical elements for the seismic de-
sign of the whole structural system. With increasing building height,
the axial compression at the core-wall base grows exponentially. In
order to ensure that the core walls have adequate deformation capacity
under lateral forces, the axial compression ratio, n1 defined as Eq. (1)
for reinforced concrete (RC) structural members, should be strictly
restricted [2].
N
n1 ¼
f c0 Ag
where N is the axial compressive force, fc0 is the compressive strength of
concrete, and Ag is the gross area of cross section.
⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 10 13426244289.
E-mail address: niejg@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn (J.-G. Nie).
As revealed by Eq. (1), the only effective way to limit the axial com-
pression ratio of RC shear walls is to increase the wall thickness because
the concrete strength may be restricted due to ductility considerations.
However, excessively thick RC core walls increase the difficulty of con-
struction and reduce the usable floor areas. In addition, the growth in
wall thickness increases the self-weight of the structure, thus driving
up the seismic forces and requiring larger cross sections for the frame
beams and columns. Therefore, it can be hard to attain an economical
and rational design using traditional RC structural walls, and in some
cases when the building reaches a certain height, it is even impossible
to accomplish the design.
One effective way to solve this problem is to employ new forms of
structural walls that have high axial load-carrying capacities and large
deformation capacities when subjected to cyclic lateral loads which
will result in smaller wall thicknesses. Steel plate–concrete composite
shear walls are recently developed structural walls and have been
used in practice [3,4]. The steel plate–concrete composite shear walls
can be categorized into two types: steel plate reinforced concrete
(SPRC) composite shear wall, and concrete-filled steel plate (CFSP)
composite shear wall, as shown in Fig. 1(a) and (b), respectively. The
ð1Þ surface plates of CFSP composite shear wall can be used as the formwork
for concrete casting, to protect the concrete cracks from exposure, and
provide additional confinement for the concrete. Therefore, the CFSP
composite shear wall has advantages in service performance and con-
struction convenience over the SPRC composite shear wall.
Several experimental studies on CFSP composite shear walls have
been conducted [5–7]. Figs. 2 and 3 show the details of the test walls
in references [5] and [6], respectively. The experimental results showed

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcsr.2014.08.006
0143-974X/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 H.-S. Hu et al. / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 103 (2014) 148–158 149

Reinforcing bars Concrete Embedded steel plate 2. Wall parameters

(a) Steel plate reinforced concrete (SPRC)
composite shear wall
Reinforcing bars Concrete Surface steel plates
(b) Concrete-filled steel plate (CFSP)
composite shear wall
Fig. 1. General details of two steel plate–concrete composite shear walls.
that the CFSP composite shear walls have large lateral deformation ca-
pacity under high axial compression [5,6], and the lateral deformation
capacity is closely related to the value of axial compressive force [6]. Be-
cause of limitations in the number of tests that can reasonably be con-
ducted, the influence of each parameter on the deformation capacity
of the composite shear walls cannot be fully studied and quantified
through experiments. To supplement experimental data, numerical
analyses are required to more fully understand the behavior of CFSP
composite shear walls.
Based on a fiber section analysis method and using refined material
constitutive models, a section analysis program for CFSP composite
shear walls was developed. A parametric study was conducted in
which 6379 CFSP composite shear wall cross sections with different
configurations were analyzed using this program to develop their mo-
ment–curvature relationships. Simplified formulas for calculating the
ultimate curvature were proposed based on the study results, and for-
mulas for evaluating the drift capacities and ductility of composite
shear walls were also proposed.
The section of CFSP composite shear wall can be divided into two
parts: boundary columns and wall-body which is the part between
the boundary columns as shown in Fig. 4. To satisfy architectural
constraints, the width of boundary columns is usually equal to the
wall-body thickness in high-rise buildings. Besides the shear stud
and batten plate connection details shown in Figs. 2 and 3, there
are other possible connection details between the surface plates in
the wall-body, such as tie bars [7] and vertical diaphragms [8]. Differ-
ent connection details may result in different amounts of concrete
confinement in the wall-body, thus different deformation capacities
of the composite shear walls. In the following analysis, the connec-
tion details in the wall-body were assumed as shown in Fig. 3.
Since the two surface plates are not directly tied together, there is lit-
tle concrete confinement in the wall-body. Therefore, such connec-
tion details lead to the lower bound of the deformation capacities
of CFSP composite shear walls. The geometric parameters are
shown in Fig. 4 where bw is the wall thickness, lw is the wall length,
l1 is the wall-body length, t 1 is the steel plate thickness of wall-
body, and t2 is the steel plate thickness of boundary columns.
The steel content ratio of wall-body is defined as the ratio of the
steel plate area to the total area of wall-body. For the steel plate–con-
crete composite shear walls in the test and engineering practice, the
steel content ratios of wall-body ranged from 2.0% to 6.67% [3–7,9,
10]. To cover the possible cases, the steel content ratios of wall-
body were taken between 1.0% and 8.0% in this paper, and the corre-
sponding values of t1/bw were then between 0.005 and 0.4.
The width-to-thickness ratio limitations of steel tubes in concrete
filled square steel tubular columns given by Eurocode 4 [11] and AISC
341-10 [12] are
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
235 
b 2
≤52 f y is in N=mm ð2Þ
t fy
sffiffiffiffiffi
b Es
≤2:26 ð3Þ
t fy

Stiffener
Batten plate
Stud
Surface plates
60

30
140
214

Boundary
column
214 214 214 214 214 214
Infill concrete 1284

(b) Wall section

Main parameters
Shear span ratio: 2.0
Steel plate thickness: 3mm, 4mm, 5mm, 6mm
Steel content ratio: 4.6%, 5.8%, 7.1%
Stud spacing: 107mm
Batten plate spacing: 145mm
N/fc0 Ag: 0.32 to 0.44

(a) Wall details

Fig. 2. Details of CFSP composite shear wall specimens tested by Hu et al. [5].
150 H.-S. Hu et al. / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 103 (2014) 148–158

φ φ φ

(b) Wall section

(a) Wall details

Fig. 3. Details of CFSP composite shear wall specimens tested by Bu [6].

where b is the steel tube width, t is the steel tube thickness, Es is the
elastic modulus of steel and fy is the yield strength of steel. For the
normal steel, E s is around 2.06 × 10 5 N/mm2 and fy is between
300 N/mm2 and 500 N/mm2, and thus the b/t limitations are between
36 and 59 calculated by Eqs. (2) and (3). To extensively study the ef-
fect of boundary columns, the width-to-thickness ratios of steel tube
were taken between 20 and 100 in this paper, i.e. 20 ≤ bw/t2 ≤ 100.
The steel plates in the boundary columns contribute more to the
φ1 φ2 φ
flexural capacity than those in the wall-body, so t2 is usually larger
φ
than t 1 in engineering practice. In the analyses included in this
paper, the range of t 2/t 1 was taken between 1.0 and 2.5, i.e.
1.0 ≤ t2/t1 ≤ 2.5. According to the general engineering practice, the ε
length-to-thickness ratios of wall cross section were taken between
6 and 12, i.e. 6 ≤ lw/bw ≤ 12.

3. Numerical methods

3.1. Calculation procedure

For a given CFSP composite wall cross section, the bending moment–
curvature (M–ϕ) relationship while subjected to a constant axial com-
pression can be obtained from the fiber section analysis method as
shown in Fig. 5. The wall cross section was discretized into a number
of fibers along the wall length as shown in Fig. 6, and assumed to remain
plane after deformation. A section analysis program for CFSP composite
shear walls was developed on the MATLAB platform [13], which was
used for the following analyses.

φ φ

Fig. 4. Cross-section of the CFDSP composite wall. Fig. 5. Calculation procedure for the moment–curvature relationship.
 H.-S. Hu et al. / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 103 (2014) 148–158 151

Fig. 6. Discreteness of the wall cross section.

3.2. Material constitutive models

3.2.1. Steel
The constitutive relationship for steel used in these analyses is shown
in Fig. 7, where the elastic modulus, Es, is equal to 2.06 × 105 N/mm2, εy is
the yield strain, εsh is the initial hardening strain taken as 5εy [14], and the
ε ε ε ε ε
hardening modulus of steel is taken as 0.01Es. No evident local buckling ε
was observed at the maximum shear capacities of CFSP composite shear
walls during the test [5,6], so the effect of local buckling was not included
in the stress–strain relationship of steel. However, for some composite
shear walls with thin steel plates, elastic or elastic–plastic local buckling
may occur before the maximum load carrying capacities. Therefore,
neglecting the effect of local buckling may overestimate the deformation Fig. 8. Uniaxial stress–strain relationships for the confined and unconfined concrete.

capacities of these composite shear walls.

Ec
r¼ ð5Þ
3.2.2. Concrete Ec −Esec
A confined concrete constitutive model was used for the concrete in
the boundary columns as it is confined by steel tubes. The concrete in
the wall-body was treated as unconfined concrete, since the surface 
f c0 =εc0 ðUnconfinedÞ
plates provide little confinement for the assumed connection details Esec ¼ ð6Þ
f cc =εcc ðConfinedÞ
discussed previously. The uniaxial stress–strain relationships of the con-
fined and unconfined concrete are shown in Fig. 8. The same mathemat-
ical forms of the constitutive equations were chosen for the confined where εc and σc are the concrete strain and stress, respectively, fc0 and
and unconfined concrete as described in the following paragraphs. fcc are the compressive strengths of unconfined and confined concrete,
The ascending branch of the compressive stress–strain curve is de- respectively, εc0 and εcc are the compressive strains at the peak of un-
scribed by Eqs. (4) to (6) [15]. The elastic modulus calculated from confined and confined concrete, respectively, and Esec is the secant mod-
these equations is the same as the given elastic modulus, Ec. ulus at the peak stress. The elastic modulus of concrete, Ec, is calculated
by Eq. (7) [16].
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffi  
8 Ec ¼ 3320 f c0 þ 6900 N=mm
2
ð7Þ
>
> f c0 ðεc =εc0 Þr
< ðUnconfinedÞ
r−1 þ ðεc =εc0 Þr
σc ¼ ð4Þ
>
> f cc ðεc =εcc Þr εc0 can be calculated by Eq. (8) [15] which is shown to increase as the
: ðConfinedÞ
r−1 þ ðεc =εcc Þr concrete strength increases.
8  
>
< 0:002 f c0 b40N=mm
2

ε c0 ¼ 40   ð8Þ
>
: 0:0028−0:0008 f c0 ≥40N=mm
2
σ f c0

fcc can be calculated by Eqs. (9) to (11) [17].

f cc ¼ f c0 þ 4 f rp ð9Þ

−ε −ε
ð f c0 Þ1:46
ε ε ε f rp ¼ −6:5R þ 0:12ð f c0 Þ
1:03
≥0 ð10Þ
fy

ε ε
vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
u  
2 sffiffiffiffiffi
u
b t12 1−νs fy
R¼ ð11Þ
t 4π2 Es

where frp is the maximum equivalent radial pressure provided by the

Fig. 7. Uniaxial stress–strain relationship of steel. steel tube, R is the width-to-thickness ratio parameter, and νs is the
152 H.-S. Hu et al. / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 103 (2014) 148–158

Poison's ratio of steel, which was taken to be 0.3. εcc can be calculated by [17]. εcu should also satisfy Eq. (16) so that the calculated residual
Eq. (12) [15], which implies that the increase of concrete strain at the strength will not be negative.
peak provided by the confinement effect is smaller for the higher
strength concrete. 8 !
>
> f c0
>
> 0:04 R ≤0:042
>
>
>
> fy
8      >
> !2 !
> f cc <
>
< ε c0 1 þ 5 −1 f c0 b40N=mm
2 f f f
εcu ¼ 14:50 R c0 −2:4R c0 þ 0:116 0:042bR c0 b0:073
ε cc ¼   f c0     ð12Þ >
>
> f y fy fy
> 40 f cc >
> !
>
: ε c0 1 þ 5 −1 f c0 ≥ 40N=mm
2
>
>
> f c0
f c0 f c0 >
> ≥0:073
: 0:018 R
fy
ð15Þ
The descending branch of the compressive stress–strain curve
was described with a linear relationship. For the unconfined con-
crete, εc85 was used to determine the slope of the descending branch,
f cc
where εc85 is the strain when the concrete stress decreases to 0.85fc0. ε cu ≤ þ εcc ð16Þ
Z
εc85 can be calculated by Eq. (13) [15], which implies that the differ-
ence between εc85 and εc0 decreases as the concrete strength
increases. This reflects the fact of the lower ductility of higher
strength concrete. The tensile stress–strain relationship of concrete has little influence
on the calculated moment–curvature relationship, so identical tensile
stress–strain relationship [18] was used for the unconfined and con-
8  
> 2 fined concrete, given by
< ε c0 þ 0:0018 f c0 b40N=mm
ε c85 ¼  2   ð13Þ
> 40 2 8
: ε c0 þ 0:0018 f c0 ≥40N=mm
f c0 < Ec ε
c 0:4
ðε c bεcr Þ
σc ¼ εc ð17Þ
: f cr ðεc ≥ε cr Þ
εcr
The descending slope Z of confined concrete can be calculated by
Eq. (14) [17]. When the width-to-thickness ratio of the steel tube is qffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
large, the slope obtained from Eq. (14) may be larger than that of the f cr ¼ 0:31 f c0 ð18Þ
corresponding unconfined concrete. Therefore, the value of Z was also
restrained not to exceed the descending slope of the corresponding
unconfined concrete. where fcr is the tensile strength of concrete, and εcr is the strain at the
peak tensile stress of concrete, which is equal to fcr/Ec.
8 !
>
> f c0 3.3. Verification
>
> ≤0:0039
<0 R
fy
Z¼ ! ð14Þ
>
> f c0 f The composite shear walls in the available tests mostly experienced
>
> R c0 N0:0039
: 23400R f −91:26 fy flexural failure, since the steel plates provided substantially large shear
y
resistance. The measured moment–curvature (M–ϕ) relationships of
Specimens CSW-2 and CSW-3 from Bu [6] were used to validate the nu-
The confined concrete will remain a residual strength when it fails. merical methods. The geometric parameters of Specimens CSW-2 and
The strain at the residual strength, εcu, can be calculated by Eq. (15) CSW-3 were the same, but different axial compressive forces were

(b) Wall section

(c) Other parameters

(a) Front view
Fig. 9. Details of Specimens CSW-2 and CSW-3.
 H.-S. Hu et al. / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 103 (2014) 148–158
(a) CSW-2
φ φ
Fig. 10. Comparison of the measured and calculated M–ϕ relationships.
applied as given in Fig. 9. The reinforcing bars in the boundary columns
and wall-body as shown in Fig. 3 were converted to equivalent steel
plates for the numerical model through the equivalence of yield
resultants:
f yr Ar
Aseq ¼ ð19Þ
f ys
where Aseq is the equivalent steel plate areas, fyr is the yield strength of
reinforcing bars, Ar is the area of reinforcing bars, and fys is the yield
strength of steel plates. The resulting steel plate thicknesses are
shown in Fig. 9(b), while the actual steel plate thickness was 3 mm for
both boundary columns and wall-body. When determining the stress–
strain relationship of confined concrete, the actual steel plate thickness
was used.
The curvature, ϕ, at the wall base was measured using two vertical
LVDTs as shown in Fig. 9(a):
δNV −δSV
ϕ¼
gl  dg
where δNV and δSV are the relative displacements measured by LVDTs
NV and SV, gl is the gauge length of LVDTs, and dg = 860 mm is the dis-
tance between two LVDTs. The base moment, Μ, is equal to Fhw, where F
is the applied lateral force and hw = 1200 mm is the wall height.
As shown in Fig. 10, the numerical methods can reasonably cap-
ture the envelope of moment–curvature (M–ϕ) response at the
wall base, and the measured and calculated ultimate curvatures are
close to each other, especially for Specimen CSW-3. However, because
of the inherent differences between the actual material behavior and
φ φ
Fig. 11. Definition of the ultimate curvature.
153
(b) CSW-3
material constitutive models used in the analysis, and possible mea-
surement errors, the measured and calculated results are not exactly
the same.
4. Deformation capacity of wall cross sections
In this section, a parametric study was conducted to determine the
main variables that affect the deformation capacity of composite wall
cross sections, and to develop simplified formulas for evaluating the de-
formation capacity of a specified composite wall cross section.
4.1. Analysis procedure
The ultimate curvature, ϕu, was defined as the curvature when the
bending moment decreases to 85% of the maximum bending moment,
Mm, as shown in Fig. 11. A second output quantity of interest, ϕulw, re-
ferred to as the dimensionless ultimate curvature hereafter, is equal to
the sum of absolute values of extreme compression and tension fiber
strains at the ultimate state, so it is more generalized than the ultimate
ð20Þ
curvature to reflect the deformation capacity of wall cross sections.
A series of wall cross sections were designed for the parametric
study. The wall thickness was fixed as 1000 mm (i.e. bw = 1000 mm).
The values of t1/bw, t2/t1, lw/bw, fy, fc0, and N/fc0Ag were varied paramet-
rically according to Table 1, with constraints that 20 ≤ bw/t2 ≤ 100 and
0.1 ≤ n2 ≤ 0.5, where n2 is the axial compression ratio for composite
elements [19], defined as
N
n2 ¼ ð21Þ
f y As þ f c0 Ac
where As and Ac are the sectional areas of steel plates and concrete, re-
spectively. In total, 6379 wall cross sections that meet the requirements
were obtained and analyzed. For some wall cross sections with small
values of width-to-thickness ratio of the steel tube, bw/t2 and axial com-
pression ratio, n2, the ultimate state cannot be reached even at a dimen-
sionless curvature, ϕlw larger than 0.1, so these wall cross sections were
not included in the parametric study.
Table 1
Values for each parameter.
Parameters Values
t1/bw 0.005, 0.01, 0.02, 0.03, 0.04
t2/t1 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5
lw/bw 6, 8, 10, 12
φ fy (N/mm2) 235, 345
fc0 (N/mm2) 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70
N/fc0Ag 0.15, 0.2, 0.25, 0.3, 0.35, 0.4, 0.45, 0.5, 0.55, 0.6, 0.65, 0.7, 0.75, 0.8
154 H.-S. Hu et al. / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 103 (2014) 148–158

φ
φ

φ φ φ β φ β φ

φ φ φ β

Fig. 12. Analysis procedure for calculation formulas of ϕulw.

In the context of a response quantity such as the deformation capac-
ity that is a complex function of multiple variables, it is instructive to
isolate the effect of individual variables. To accomplish this goal, the
effects of concrete confinement in the boundary columns and strain
hardening of steel plates were first ignored. Based on these simplified
constitutive models, another series of dimensionless ultimate curvature
values could be obtained for the analyzed wall cross sections, which are
denoted as (ϕulw)t. The critical parameters for (ϕulw)t were easier to
find, and simplified formulas for calculating (ϕulw)t could be deter-
mined based on the parametric study. The effects of boundary column
concrete confinement and strain hardening of steel plates were subse-
quently considered by introducing two coefficients, βc and βs, respec-
tively. Therefore, ϕulw can be written as ϕulw = βcβs(ϕulw)t. The
analysis procedure is illustrated in Fig. 12.
ignoring boundary column concrete confinement and strain hardening,
1/(ϕulw)t and the axial compression ratio, n2 for different values of t1/bw
and fy is shown in Fig. 15. When n2 is large and for a fixed value of n2, the
value of 1/(ϕulw)t decreases as the value of t1/bw and fy increases. When
n2 is small and for a fixed value of n2, the influence of t1/bw and fy on 1/
(ϕulw)t is not evident. This indicates that the improvement of deforma-
tion capacity provided by the steel plates is more evident when the axial
compressive force is large. ξ is defined in Eq. (23) to consider the com-
bined influence of t1/bw and fy. It can conceptually be thought of as the
ratio of compression capacity provided by the steel plates to that pro-
vided by the concrete in the wall-body.
f y t 1 l1 f y t1 f y ðt 1 =bw Þ
ξ¼ ¼ ¼ : ð23Þ
f c0 ðbw −2t 1 Þl1 f c0 ðbw −2t 1 Þ f c0 ð1−2t 1 =bw Þ

4.2. Calculation formulas of ϕulw
For fixed values of t1/bw, fc0 and fy, the inverse of the dimensionless
ultimate curvature based on ignoring boundary column concrete con-
finement and strain hardening, 1/(ϕulw)t was found to have an approx-
imately linear relationship with the axial compression ratio, n2. Fig. 13
shows the relationship between 1/(ϕulw)t and n2 when t1/bw = 0.02,
fc0 = 30 N/mm2 and fy = 345 N/mm2. Since the relationship was ap-
proximately linear, formulas for calculating (ϕulw)t can be written as:
1 compression ratio, n2 for smaller values of n2, as shown in Fig. 14.
ðϕu lw Þt ¼
C 1 n2 þ C 2
where C1 and C2 are two coefficients related to t1/bw, fc0 and fy. As re-
vealed by Eq. (22), the deformation capacity of the wall cross section de-
creases as the axial compression ratio, n2 increases for fixed values of C1
and C2.
For different values of concrete strength, fc0, the relationship be-
tween the dimensionless ultimate curvature based on ignoring bound-
ary column concrete confinement and strain hardening, 1/(ϕulw)t and
the axial compression ratio, n2 is shown in Fig. 14. For the same value
of n2, the value of 1/(ϕulw)t increases as the concrete strength increases.
In Fig. 14, the values of t1/bw and fy are also varying.
For the fixed concrete strength, fc0 = 30 N/mm2, the relationship be-
tween the inverse of the dimensionless ultimate curvature based on
For different levels of concrete strengths, the calculation formulas
of the dimensionless ultimate curvature based on ignoring boundary
column concrete confinement and strain hardening, (ϕulw)t were ob-
tained through data fitting, and are given in Table 2. For concrete
strengths that are not listed in Table 2, the value of (ϕulw)t can be cal-
culated from interpolation. The values of (ϕulw)t calculated from for-
mulas and numerical methods are compared in Fig. 16. For a fixed
value of concrete strength, the formula results agreed better with
the numerical solutions for smaller values of (ϕ u lw) t , as shown in
Fig. 16. This is because 1/(ϕulw)t was not well linear with the axial
ð22Þ
The relationship between the dimensionless ultimate curvature
based on ignoring strain hardening, (ϕulw)c and the dimensionless ulti-
mate curvature based on ignoring both boundary column concrete con-
finement and strain hardening (ϕulw)t is shown in Fig. 17. The values of
(ϕulw)c/(ϕulw)t were mostly in a range from 1.0 to 2.0 as shown in
Fig. 17, and were primarily related to the values of width-to-thickness
ratio of the steel tube, bw/t2 (representing the amount of concrete con-
finement in the boundary columns) and length-to-thickness ratio of the
wall cross section, lw/bw (representing the ratio of the total area to the
confined area). Therefore, the coefficient βc which captures the effect
of concrete confinement in the boundary columns on the ultimate cur-
vature of the wall cross section was defined as the average value of
(ϕulw)c/(ϕulw)t for a set of wall cross sections with the same values of
bw/t2 and lw/bw.

Fig. 13. 1/(ϕulw)t–n2 relationship for fixed values of t1/bw, fc0 and fy. Fig. 14. Influence of fc0 on the 1/(ϕulw)t–n2 relationship.
 H.-S. Hu et al. / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 103 (2014) 148–158 155

5. Deformation capacity of cantilever walls

For a high-rise structural wall subjected to inverted triangular

distributed lateral loads, the curvature distribution along the wall
height when the wall base reaches the ultimate state is shown in
Fig. 21(a). In the deformation analysis of the individual structural
wall, the curvature distribution is approximately equivalent to the
distribution shown in Fig. 21(b) [20], so the top lateral displacement
can be evaluated by

11    1

2
δu ¼ δy þ δp ¼ ϕy hw þ ϕu −ϕy lp hw − lp ð27Þ
40 2

Fig. 15. Influence of t1/bw and fy on the 1/(ϕulw)t–n2 relationship.

where δu is the top lateral displacement at the ultimate state, δy is the
top lateral displacement due to elastic deformation, δp is the lateral
displacement due to the rotation of the plastic hinge at the wall
The values of βc for different sets of wall cross sections with the same base, ϕy is the yield curvature and lp is the equivalent plastic hinge
values of bw/t2 and lw/bw obtained from the numerical program are length. Assuming ϕy = 2ε y /lw and lp = 0.5l w [20], Eq. (27) can be
shown by markers in Fig. 18. The increase of ultimate curvature due to written as
concrete confinement, βc, decreases as the values of bw/t2 and lw/bw in-
crease. Data fitting was carried out for βc, which led to the following δu h  h 
h
equation which is shown by lines in Fig. 18: ¼ 0:55εy w þ 0:5 ϕu lw −2ε y w
−0:25 w ð28Þ
hw lw lw lw

βc ¼ maxð0:0017ð62−bw =t 2 Þð16−lw =bw Þ þ 1; 1Þ: ð24Þ

where δu/hw is the drift capacity of the composite shear wall and the
dimensionless ultimate curvature, ϕulw can be calculated using the
The relationship between the dimensionless ultimate curvature, proposed Eq. (26). The ductility of the composite shear wall, μδ can
ϕulw and the dimensionless ultimate curvature based on ignoring strain be evaluated by
hardening, (ϕulw)c is shown in Fig. 19. For 89.5% of the analyzed wall ! 
cross sections, the values of ϕulw/(ϕulw)c were between 1.0 and 1.1, δu 10 ϕu lw hw
μδ ¼ ¼ −2 −0:25 þ 1: ð29Þ
and for another 4.1%, the values of ϕulw/(ϕulw)c were between 0.95 δy 11 εy lw
and 1.0. Therefore, the influence of strain hardening on the ultimate
strain was not evident for most wall cross sections, and the coefficient The top lateral displacement at the ultimate state can also be ap-
βs which represents the influence of strain hardening was taken as proximately computed by ignoring the elastic deformation and moving
1.0, i.e. the plastic hinge center to the wall base, as shown in Fig. 21(c). Thus, δu
is given by
βs ¼ 1:0: ð25Þ
δu ¼ ϕu lp hw ¼ ϕu ð0:5lw Þhw ¼ 0:5ϕu lw hw : ð30Þ
Thus, the proposed formula for calculating the dimensionless ulti-
mate curvature, ϕulw can be written as It has been shown in the literature [21] that this simplified model
can provide sufficient accuracy. Eq. (30) can be rewritten as
ϕu lw ¼ βs βc ðϕu lw Þt ¼ βc ðϕu lw Þt ð26Þ
δu
¼ 0:5ϕu lw : ð31Þ
where βc is given by Eq. (24), and the formulas for (ϕulw)t for different hw
levels of concrete strengths are tabulated in Table 2.
As shown in Fig. 20, the relative errors between the formula results Eqs. (28), (29) and (31) can be used in conjunction with formulas
and numerical solutions were less than 15% for most of the analyzed proposed in this paper for the dimensionless ultimate curvature,
wall cross sections, indicating that the formulas have adequate accuracy ϕ u lw and thus incorporated in the displacement-based [21] or
to predict the deformation capacity of the composite wall cross sections. ductility-based design approaches [22]. Furthermore, Eqs. (28) and
The estimations of (ϕulw)c, βc and βs jointly led to the potential errors (31) can be used to estimate the cross sections of CFSP composite
associated with Eq. (26). shear walls based on an estimated drift demand during preliminary
design.
Table 2
Formulas for calculating (ϕulw)t. 6. Conclusions
2
fc0 (N/mm ) (ϕulw)t
Based on a fiber section analysis approach using refined material
20 1
constitutive models, an analysis program was developed to analyze
ð355ξ2 −407ξþ248Þn2 −119ξ2 þ107ξ−10:3
30 1 the moment–curvature behavior of concrete-filled steel plate composite
ð143ξ2 −273ξþ249Þn2 −71:1ξ2 þ89:4ξ−13:5
40 1 shear walls. A total of 6379 wall cross sections with various geometric
ð128ξ2 −247ξþ252Þn2 −66:2ξ2 þ88:3ξ−15:7 and material properties were then analyzed. The key findings of the
50 1
ð138ξ2 −276ξþ307Þn2 −74:3ξ2 þ105ξ−15:4 study are summarized as follows:
60 1
ð117ξ2 −271ξþ348Þn2 −70:6ξ2 þ108ξ−12:4
70 1 (1) The inverse of the dimensionless ultimate curvature based on
ð150ξ2 −311ξþ391Þn2 −77:5ξ2 þ120ξ−10:9
ignoring boundary element concrete confinement and strain
156 H.-S. Hu et al. / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 103 (2014) 148–158

(a) fc0=20 N/mm2 (b) fc0=30 N/mm2

(c) fc0=40 N/mm2 (d) fc0=50 N/mm2

(e) fc0=60 N/mm2 (f) fc0=70 N/mm2

Fig. 16. Comparison of (ϕulw)t calculated from formulas and numerical methods.

Fig. 17. Relationship between (ϕulw)c and (ϕulw)t. Fig. 18. βc for different values of bw/t2 and lw/bw.
 H.-S. Hu et al. / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 103 (2014) 148–158 157

hardening, 1/(ϕulw)t was shown to have an approximately linear

relationship with the axial compression ratio, n2. The value of
(ϕulw)t was also correlated to the concrete strength, yield
strength of steel plates and steel content ratio of the wall-body.
(2) The effect of the boundary element concrete confinement on the
deformation capacity of wall cross sections was primarily related
to the values of width-to-thickness ratio of the steel tube and
length-to-thickness ratio of the wall cross section. Strain harden-
ing of the steel plates had little effect on the deformation capacity
of wall cross sections.
(3) The proposed simplified formulas were shown to have reasonable
accuracy for predicting the ultimate curvatures of composite wall
cross sections as compared with the numerical method. The drift
capacities and ductility of composite shear walls can be evaluated
Fig. 19. Relationship between ϕulw and (ϕulw)c. based on the proposed formulas for ultimate curvatures of wall
cross sections.

(a) fc0=20 N/mm2 (b) fc0=30 N/mm2

(c) fc0=40 N/mm2 (d) fc0=50 N/mm2

(e) fc0=60 N/mm2 (f) fc0=70 N/mm2

Fig. 20. Comparison of ϕulw calculated from formulas and numerical methods.
158 H.-S. Hu et al. / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 103 (2014) 148–158
(a) Actual curvature and
displacement
Fig. 21. Curvature and displacement distributions of the structural wall under lateral loads.
Acknowledgments
The work reported in this paper was supported by the National
Key Technology R&D Program of China (2011BAJ09B01), National
Science Fund of China (51178246) and Tsinghua University Initiative
Scientific Research Program (2010Z03078). The support is gratefully
acknowledged.
References
[1] Park HS, Hong K, Seo JH. Drift design of steel-frame shear-wall systems for tall
buildings. Struct Des Tall Build 2002;11(1):35–49.
[2] GB 50011-2010 code for seismic design of buildings. Beijing, China Architecture In-
dustry Press; 2010 [in Chinese].
[3] Ding CH, Jiang HC, Zeng J, Zhang HD, Du G. An innovation application of SCS compos-
ite wall: structural design of Yancheng TV Tower. Build Struct 2011;41(12):87–91
[in Chinese].
[4] Sun JC, Wang Y, Sun HZ, Chen Y. Application of steel plate concrete composite wall in
National Museum of China. Build Struct 2011;41(6):14–9 [in Chinese].
[5] Nie JG, Hu HS, Fan JS, Tao MX, Li SY, Liu FJ. Experimental study on seismic behavior of
high-strength concrete filled double-steel-plate composite walls. J Constr Steel Res
2013;88:206–19.
[6] Bu F. Research on the performance of composite shear wall with double steel plates
and infill concrete. Ph.D. thesis Beijing: Tsinghua University; 2011 [in Chinese].
[7] Eom TS, Park HG, Lee CH, Kim JH, Chang IH, et al. Behavior of double skin composite
wall subjected to in-plane cyclic loading. J Struct Eng ASCE 2009;135(10):1239–49.
[8] Link RA, Elwi AE. Composite concrete steel plate walls — analysis and behavior.
J Struct Eng ASCE 1995;121(2):260–71.
(b) Simplified model 1 (c) Simplified model 2
[9] Lv XL, Gan CJ, Wang W. Study on seismic behavior of steel plate reinforced concrete
shear walls. J Build Struct 2009;30(5):89–96 [in Chinese].
[10] Chen T, Xiao CZ, Tian CY, Xu PF. Experimental study of the compression-bending be-
havior of composite shear walls of high axial compression ratios. China Civ Eng J
2011;44(6):1–7 [in Chinese].
[11] DD ENV 1994-1-1:1994. Eurocode 4: Design of composite steel and concrete
structures, Part 1.1: General rules and rules for buildings. London W1A2BS: British
Standards Institution; 1994.
[12] American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC). ANSI/AISC 341-10 seismic provi-
sions for structural steel buildings. American Institute of Steel Construction; 2010.
[13] Incorporation M W. MATLAB user manual version 7.1 (R14). Natick, MA: Math
Works Incorporation; 2005.
[14] Shi YJ, Wang M, Wang YQ. Experimental and constitutive model study of structural
steel under cyclic loading. J Constr Steel Res 2011;67(8):1185–97.
[15] Razvi S, Saatcioglu M. Confinement model for high-strength concrete. J Struct Eng
ASCE 1999;125(3):281–9.
[16] Carrasquillo RL, Nilson AH, Slate FO. Properties of high-strength concrete subjected
to short term loads. ACI J Proc 1981;78(3):171–8.
[17] Susantha K, Ge HB, Usami T. Uniaxial stress–strain relationship of concrete confined
by various shaped steel tubes. Eng Struct 2001;23(10):1331–47.
[18] Hsu T, Zhu R. Softened membrane model for reinforced concrete elements in shear.
ACI Struct J 2002;99(4):460–9.
[19] JGJ 138-2001 technical specification for steel reinforced concrete composite struc-
tures. Beijing, China Architecture Industry Press; 2001 [in Chinese].
[20] Paulay T, Priestley MJN. Seismic design of reinforced concrete and masonry build-
ings. New York: Wiley; 1992 141–2.
[21] Moehle JP. Displacement-based design of RC structures subjected to earthquakes.
Earthquake Spectra, EERI 1992;8(3):403–28.
[22] Chopra AK. Dynamics of structures: theory and applications to earthquake engineer-
ing. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall; 1995 257–304.