Experimental and numerical study regarding a fabricated CFST frame composite wall structure.

This paper presents fabricated concrete-filled steel tube (CFST) frame sandwich-insulation composite wall structures, which comprise CFST columns, H-shaped steel beams and a sandwich-insulation composite wall with or without openings. The seismic behaviors of four full-size specimens were investigated under low-cyclic loading, including the failure mode, hysteretic behavior, strength, ductility, strength and stiffness degradation, energy dissipation capacity and strains. The experimental results indicated that the proposed fabricated structures had good seismic behavior. The fabricated composite wall had a significant effect on the bearing capacity of the structures and the stiffness and energy dissipation capacity. The ductility of the fabricated CFST frame sandwich-insulation composite wall structure can meet the requirements of the elastic-plastic inter-story drift limit of seismic design in practical engineering. Although the tested structures had the same opening ratio, the structure with window openings had better seismic performance than the structure with door openings. Furthermore, the equivalent compression strut model was used to calculate the bearing capacity of the proposed structures. The errors between the test and calculation results were within 10%. The equivalent compression strut model can provide useful design guidance for fabricated CFST frame sandwich-insulation composite wall structures. • This paper presents fabricated concrete-filled steel tube (CFST) frame sandwich-insulation composite wall structures. • The seismic behaviors of four full-size specimens were investigated under low-cyclic loading. • The equivalent compression strut model was used to calculate the bearing capacity of the proposed structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]