Experimental Investigation of the Shear Resistance of Steel Frames with Precast Concrete Infill Panels

At the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven a research program on composite construction is underway aiming at the development of design rules for steel frames with discretely connected precast concrete infill panels subject to in-plane horizontal loading. This paper presents experimental and finite element results of an investigation into their lateral stiffness and strength. A discrete connection between steel frame and concrete panel consist of one or two achor bars welded to a partially cast-in steel plate which is fastened with two bolts to a gusset plate welded to a frame member. The bolts in the connection are loaded in shear only. Two variations on this type of connection were tested experimentally. To avoid brittle failure, the connections are designed for a failure mechanism consisting of ovalisation in the bolt holes due to bearing of the bolts. Experimental pull-out and shear tests on individual frame-panel connections were performed to establish their stiffness and failure load. Two full scale experiments were done on one-storey one-bay 3 by 3m infilled frame structures which were horizontally loaded at the top. With the known characteristics of the frame-panel connections from the experiments on individual connections, finite element analyses were performed on the infilled frame structures taking non-linear behaviour of the structural components into account. The finite element model yields good results for the lateral stiffness and lower and upper bounds for strength.