Experimental Research on Out-of-Plane Cyclic Behavior of Steel-Plate Composite Walls

Three steel-plate composite walls were tested under reversal loads. The primary purpose of this experiment was to investigate the out-of-plane behavior of steel-plate composite walls under seismic actions, including the failure modes, hysteretic behavior, strength, and stiffness while emphasizing the effects of shear span, connection details, and thickness of the steel plates. All specimens showed some pinching effect in the hysteresis loops. Both shear failure and flexural failure occurred in the tests depending on the shear span and steel plate thickness of the specimens. All surface steel plates of the specimens remained unbuckled before yielding during the loading process, which indicated that the ratio of connector spacing to surface steel plate thickness adopted for the specimens satisfied the requirement of yielding before buckling. The test results also showed that the tie bars contributed significantly to the out-of-plane shear strength of the steel-plate composite walls.