Experimental study on seismic performance of steel plate reinforced concrete tubes under cyclic loading

In recent years, steel plate reinforced concrete (SPRC) tubes have been applied in super-tall buildings increasingly in China Mainland. However, there has been very limited information about the damage behavior of such kind of composite tube subjected to the earthquake. This paper presents the quasi-static tests on three 1/5-scaled specimens including one steel reinforced concrete tube and two SPRC tubes with different steel plate ratio designed according to the current design codes and engineering practice to evaluate their seismic performance under cyclic lateral loading. The damage modes, hysteretic behavior, strength, deformation capacity, strength and stiffness degradation, shear deformation, and strain distribution of the specimens are discussed. The test results show that compared with the steel reinforced concrete tube, the seismic performance of the SPRC tube is significantly enhanced, and the effect of steel plate ratio on the seismic performance of the SPRC tube is not significant. Because of the lateral restraint effect of the concrete on the steel plate, there is no buckling behavior in the steel plate during the whole loading process.