# Experimental Study of High-Strength Concrete-Steel Plate Composite Shear Walls
## 1 Introduction
[PERSON] [22] and [PERSON] [23] reported similar findings on the shear wall system that consists of two skins of profiled steel sheeting with an in-fill of concrete. However, corrosion-protection and fire-protection layers are necessary for CFSP walls, because the steel plate is directly exposed to the environment, which increases the difficulty and complexity of construction. Therefore, the steel-plate-embedded concrete shear wall has advantages in engineering practice and has attracted the attention of researchers and practitioners. [PERSON] [24] proposed a composite shear wall system comprising an infill steel plate with concrete panels that are attached on one side or both sides, and it is included in AISC Seismic Provisions and denoted as concrete stiffened steel plate shear wall (CSPSW) [25]. Note that a gap exists between concrete panel and the steel frame, thus the concrete panel merely works as a stiffer to prevent the bulking of the infill steel plate. The China Academy of Building Research (CABR) systematically studied the monolithic cast-in-place (CIP) RCSW with embedded steel plate, named as reinforced concrete-steel plate shear walls (RCSPSW). Figure 1 presents configurations of conventional RCSW and RCSPSW. The latter wall system consists of three major components, as depicted in Figure 1b. Concrete and steel reinforcement are identical to RCSW, while the I-shaped steel profiles are encased in boundary elements and the steel plate is embedded in the wall web. [PERSON] [26] and [PERSON] [27] investigated the shear and flexure behavior of normal-strength concrete-SP shear walls and demonstrated their good performances in both strength and deformation capabilities. [PERSON] [28] studied the effects of aspect ratios on lateral load performances of RCSPSW based on the previous research outcome. Subsequently, RCSPSW was successfully applied in the construction of high-rise buildings in China, such as: Shanghai Tower (632 m in height), Guangzhou East Tower (530 m in height), etc. [29]. Not content with the benefits that RCPSSW brought, practitioners claimed that there is still a need to further reduce the wall thickness for super-tall buildings. In response to their expectation, the use of high-strength (HS) concrete in RCPSSW system becomes a potential option, because the high compressive strength of HS concrete can be an advantage when the walls are subjected to high axial compressive loadings. Meanwhile, whether the brittleness of HS concrete affects the ductility of RCPSSW remains in question. [PERSON] [30] and [PERSON] [31] investigated the compression-bending behavior of HS concrete shear walls and explore viable structural steel arrangements in the wall section to improve the deformability. The research outcome demonstrated that the flexure strength and ductility were effectively improved by the steel profiles encased in boundary elements. However, the overall seismic performances of HS RCPSSW system remain unknown to researchers. Additionally, the progressions of damage and failure modes of HS RCPSSW with different aspect ratios are not clear. The authors have conducted a comprehensive experimental investigation to study both shear and flexure behavior of HS RCPSSW in order to verify the reliability of HS RCPSSW system in engineering practices. Eleven high-strength concrete shear walls with two different aspect ratios (1.5 and 2.7) were constructed and tested under quasi-static reversed cyclic loading, including five conventional RCSW  
Figure 1: The Concept of Reinforced Concrete-Steel Plate Composite Shear Wall System. and six RCPSPSW. Lateral load performance and failure modes are compared and discussed based on experimental observations. This paper emphasizes the experimental investigation and the design strength models of HS RCPSW. Analytical and numerical models, as well as ways to incorporate axial-shear-flexure interaction, will be presented in a follow-up paper.