Preliminary studies on a prefabricated hybrid steel-concrete seismic-resistant wall

Steel frames with reinforced concrete infill walls (SRCWs) have potential advantages as seismic-resistant systems. However, the review of the state of the art highlighted how the behaviour of hybrid shear walls is rather difficult to be controlled due to ambiguities in the definition of the resisting mechanism and lack of capacity design rules. While Eurocode 8 considers SRCWs to behave essentially as reinforced concrete walls, numerical analyses carried out on SRCWs demonstrated that this assumption may be far from reality. In this study an innovative structural concept of hybrid shear walls made of steel and partially precast concrete is presented. Numerical models are used to investigate the seismic performances of the proposed SRCW system and its components when connected to steel and steel-concrete composite frames.