SEISMIC DESIGN AND PRELIMINARY ANALISES OF A MODULAR HYBRID STEEL-CONCRETE WALL

Steel frames with reinforced concrete infill walls (SRCWs) are an interesting structural solution for applications in seismic areas if designed to exploit the stiffness of reinforced concrete (RC) and the ductility and dissipative capacity of steel. Three horizontal resisting mechanisms can be identified in SRCW: 1) contribution of the steel frame; 2) direct interactions between the steel frame and the compression strut in the RC infill walls; 3) interactions between steel frame and the RC infill wall through friction and shear connectors. While Eurocode 8 considers SRCWs to behave essentially as RC walls, numerical analyses demonstrated that this assumption may be far from reality. Innovative solutions for SRCW and relevant design approaches were eventually proposed in order to achieve a structural system able to fully exploit the advantages of the steel and RC components. In this context, the present study investigates a type of innovative modular SRCW through numerical simulations allowing a better understanding of its structural behaviour and seismic performance.