Compressive behavior of double skin composite wall with different plate thicknesses

Abstract

Double skin steel-concrete composite walls could offer high capacity and stiffness while affiliating the construction. The structural behavior of double skin steel-concrete composite walls under axial compression is largely dependent on the interface bonding between the steel plate and the concrete core. Weak restraint between these two different materials may lead to early local buckling of the steel plate and thus the separation between the steel and concrete surfaces under large compression. Furthermore, the plate thickness is essential to the axial behavior of composite walls. Thin plate may cause early local buckling and thus reduce the axial load capacity. This paper investigates a new type of double skin composite wall. The steel truss constructed by two angles and kinked rebar is acting as the interface connector. Full-scaled tests were conducted on three specimens with different plate thicknesses. The structural behavior of the walls was comprehensively evaluated in terms of load-displacement curve, buckling stress, axial stiffness, ductility ratio, strength index, load-lateral deflection response, and strain distribution. The influences of plate thickness on the structural performance were discussed in details. The test data was compared with the calculated results based on three modern codes. It was found that Eurocode 4 provides the most conservative results while CECS: 2018 offers the most suitable predictions.