Monotonic Behaviors of Steel Frames with Sandwich Composite Panel Infills: Theoretical and Numerical

Abstract

Abstract: Analysis of infilled frames is one of the most complicated problems in the structural engineering field. This complication is mainly attributed to the existence of the variety and complex of the infills and the difficulty in modeling the infill-frames interaction. In the present paper, with the aim to study the integral behavior of the single-story single-bay steel frames with sandwich composite panel infills, a proper computational model (the panel is simplified into an equivalent pin-jointed diagonal strut) is proposed. In the theoretical study, both of the panels and steel frames are assumed to be in the linear elastic state for simplicity’s sake, and then the cross-section area of the equivalent strut is obtained by imposing the initial lateral stiffness of actual structure equal to that of simplified model. As a support of the discussion, several numerical models under monotonic lateral loadings are performed by software ABAQUS, in order to verify the theoretical analysis. Finally, results from theoretical study and numerical modeling are compared, which give a satisfactory correlation between them.