Experimental Investigation on the Seismic Behavior of a New Self-Centering Shear Wall with Additional Friction

In this work, a new self-centering shear wall with disc spring devices (SCSW-DSD) was developed and experimentally verified. The proposed SCSW-DSD was a combination of a reinforced concrete (RC) wall and two disc spring devices (DSDs), and the DSD comprised both a self-centering device to provide restoring force and a friction energy dissipator to dissipate seismic energy. Two SCSW-DSD specimens with different additional friction forces were designed and fabricated, and four low reversed cyclic loading tests were conducted to investigate the effect of additional friction on the seismic behavior. The results reveal that the SCSW-DSD specimens exhibited stable self-centering and effective energy dissipation during all four tests, and the bearing capacity and energy dissipation increased with the increase of additional friction force. The residual drift ratios of the SCSW-DSD specimens were also reduced by installing the DSDs. In addition, the main parts of the RC wall remained elastic at a drift ratio of 3% after the first loading tests. Although cracks and local concrete crushing occurred at the bottom of the RC wall, these could be repaired, and the earthquake resilience requirements were still met after the second loadings.