Hysteretic behavior of special shaped columns composed of steel and reinforced concrete (SRC)

This paper describes a series of experimental investigations on seventeen specimens of steel reinforced concrete special shaped (SRCSS) columns under low cyclic reversed loading using parallel crosshead equipment. Nine T-shaped SRC columns, four L-shaped SRC columns and four +-shaped SRC columns were tested to examine the effects of shape steel configuration, loading angle, axial compressive ratio and shear-span ratio on the behavior (strength, stiffness, energy dissipation, ductility, etc.) of SRCSS column specimens. The failure modes and hysteretic performance of all the specimens were obtained in the tests. Test results demonstrate that the shear-span ratio is the main parameter affecting the failure modes of SRCSS columns. The specimens with small shear-span ratio are prone to shear failure, and the primary failure planes in SRCSS columns are parallel to the loading direction. As a result, there is a symmetry between positive and negative loading directions in the hysteretic curves of the SRCSS columns. The majority of displacement ductility coefficients for all the specimens are over 3.0, so that the SRCSS columns demonstrate a better deformation capacity. In addition, the equivalent viscous damping coefficients of all the specimens are greater than 0.2, indicating that the seismic behavior of SRCSS columns is adequate. Finally, the superposition theory was used to calculate the limits of axial compressive ratio for the specimens, and it is found that the test axial compressive ratio is close to or smaller than the calculated axial compressive ratio limit.