Local responses of steel-plate composite walls subjected to impact loads: Intermediate scale tests

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental study to investigate the local response of steel plate-concrete (SC) composite walls subjected to impact loads. Seven SC-wall specimens of an intermediate scale with plane dimensions of 2100 × 2100 mm and thicknesses in the range 320–360 mm are tested with target impact projectile velocities in the range 122–159 m/s. Wall thickness, steel-plate thickness, reinforcement ratio, yield strength of the steel plate, and tie bars are considered as the main design parameters for SC walls. For the projectiles, the impact velocity and weight are varied with the wall design parameters. Test results are evaluated using the design equations presented in AISC N690s-1 Appendix N9 based on the three-step method developed using an experimental database comprising the results of 130 prior tests. The impact tests conducted in this study indicate that the three-step method tends to be overly conservative, requiring an improved method to predict accurately the impact behavior of SC walls for beyond design basis impact evaluation. The effects of tie bars and strain rate, which were not addressed in the three-step method, are also examined. The test results and new findings provided in this paper are valuable for more reasonably predicting the impact responses of SC walls and improving the current design methods.