Concrete filled steel plate composite coupling beams: Experimental study: Fid-Bau Portal

Concrete filled steel plate composite coupling beams: Experimental study

Nie, Jian-Guo / Hu, Hong-Song / Eatherton, Matthew R.

Abstract This paper presents an experimental study on the concrete filled steel plate composite coupling beams to evaluate and improve their seismic behavior. Six coupling beam specimens with varying span-to-height ratio, steel plate thickness and bending-to-shear capacity ratio were subjected to reversed cyclic loading. The progression of limit states began with the fracture of the steel plates at the beam corners which gradually propagated to the middle of the steel webs and steel flanges. There was limited increase in the shear capacity of the coupling beams after fracture initiated. Two local buckling phenomena including compression local buckling at the beam ends and shearing buckling of the steel webs were observed. No compression failure phenomena were observed in the infill concrete, and the concrete crack patterns were consistent with the deformation of steel plates. The deformation capacity of specimens without butt welds in the connection between the coupling beam web and the shear wall was shown to be larger than that of the specimens with butt welds at that location. Stable and full hysteretic behavior was developed by the coupling beams, indicating stable energy dissipation capability.

Highlights • The concrete-filled steel plate composite coupling beam was proposed. • Six composite coupling beam specimens were tested under reversed cyclic loading. • The progression of limit states for each specimen was described. • The hysteretic behavior and different aspects of specimen response were discussed.