Study On Elastic-plastic Behavior And Shear Capacity Of Plate-reinforced Composite Coupling Beam

Coupling beams are often the most critical members in tall buildings. Their bearingcapacity, ductility and energy dissipation capacity all have great effects on the seismicbehavior of coupled shear walls. Plate-reinforced composite (PRC) coupling beam isfabricated by embedding a vertical steel plate into a conventional reinforced concretecoupling beam to enhance its strength and deformability. Shear studs are welded on thesurfaces of the steel plate to transfer forces between the concrete and the steel plate.Extensive experimental studies have demonstrated the effectiveness and efficiency ofthis new type of coupling beam in resisting high shear force and large rotational demandfrom large wind or seismic loading.In order to further study the effect factors of elastic-plastic behavior and the shearcapacity of medium and small span/depth ratio (l/h=1.0~2.5) of PRC coupling beams, Inthis paper, failure mechanism and failure process of PRC coupling beams was firststudied according to the experimentation combined with numerical simulation. Then39numerical simulation models are built. Most of the models are for shear failure, a smallamount of bending shear failure and the longitudinal reinforcement bond slip failure, inaddition with the thick plate model happened early failure of wall. According to thenumerical study, the author investigate the effects of variations in span/depth ratios,longitudinal reinforcement ratios，plate thickness and wall reinforcement ratios on theload-rotation response under monotonically increasing loading. The ConcreteDiagonally Cracked Model is also investigated and so are the internal load distributions.There is always a reasonable range on span/depth ratios, plate thickness andreinforcement ratios to satisfy the bearing capacity and energy dissipation capacity requirements for PRC coupling beams，and should also avoid “strong beam-weak wall”phenomenon. But the wall reinforcement space will also lead to the wall reinforcementquantity limitation, which affects the PRC coupling beam bearing capacity limit.Finally, this paper put forward the lack of existing calculation methods. A newcalculation method of shear capacity was proposed according to the experimentalanalysis of PRC beam shear bearing capacity factors. The shear capacity of PRCcoupling beams is consistent with the proposed formula.