In-Plane Behavior and Design of Rectangular SC Wall Piers without Boundary Elements

Abstract

AbstractThis paper focuses on the in-plane behavior, analysis, and design of steel-plate composite (SC) wall piers without boundary elements. A series of SC wall pier specimens with aspect ratios (wall height-to-length ratios, h/lw) ranging from 0.6 to 1.0 were tested under cyclic loading until failure. The results include the lateral load-displacement (V-Δ) responses of the specimens along with observations of steel plate local buckling and concrete crushing. Detailed 3D finite element models of the SC wall specimens were developed and benchmarked using the experimental results. The models explicitly accounted for the effects of geometric nonlinearity and material inelasticity including steel local buckling, concrete crushing, and tension fracture. The benchmarked models were used to conduct parametric studies. The parameters included were the wall aspect ratio (h/lw), reinforcement ratio (ρ), and wall thickness (T). The experimental results and parametric studies indicated that the lateral load capacity...