Fracture of connections between steel and reinforced concrete shear walls under the cyclic loading

In steel structures, the effects of horizontal load like earthquake, are more displaced because of the elastic properties of the materials, compared with reinforced concrete structures. Therefore, in steel frame structures, diagonal systems, steel shear walls systems, and reinforced concrete shear walls systems are built for displacements which arise from earthquake or wind effects. In this study in steel frame structures, reinforced concrete shear wall was used. In the experiment samples, different types of connectors were used to connect the reinforced concrete shear walls with steel frame. These shear connectors are single stud, double stud, single I-shape, double I-shape and single U-shape. In these experiments the connections influences were examined by cyclic loading. It is known that currently, stud shear connectors are widely used in composite structural members for composite action between steel and concrete. The experimental results show that the bearing capacity of studs from shear connectors was less than that of other connectors. However, the bearing capacity of shear connections formed with two I-shape steel profiles were bigger than that of other connections.