Experimental study on the seismic performance of a cold-formed thin-walled steel–concrete composite column-H steel beam frame

For lightweight steel frame structures consisting of steel H-beams and cold-formed steel columns filled with concrete, seismic performance comparison tests and numerical simulation analyses were performed for bare and infilled frames. The effects of the lightweight wall panels, the axial compression ratio and the wall thickness of the steel sections of the columns on the seismic properties of the structure were investigated. The failure of the bare frame was concentrated in the weld fractures at the beam-column joints. When the wall panels were embedded in the frame, the damage was concentrated at the corners and edges of the wall panels and the connectors. The wall panels significantly improved the initial stiffness of the frame, early energy dissipation and resistance, and the wall panel energy dissipation rate was initially as great as 91%. As the axial compression ratio increased, the resistance of the structure significantly decreased. Under monotonic loading, the resistance on the structure with an axial compression ratio of 0.4 was reduced by nearly 44% compared to the structure without axial compression. Increasing the wall thickness of the steel sections of the columns increased the load-bearing capacity of the structure, but the increase diminished with increasing wall thickness.