Performance of double-skin composite walls with re-entrant profiled faceplates under eccentric compression

Abstract

Profiled double-skin composite walls (PDSCWs) have been widely used in multi-storey building structures since the 1990s. Using re-entrant profiled plates as faceplates in the PDSCWs eliminates the need for additional connecting members, thus leading to economic designs and convenience in their fabrication. In this paper, analytical and numerical investigations are conducted to study the structural behaviour of PDSCWs with re-entrant profiled faceplates under eccentric compression. Advanced finite element (FE) models incorporating both material and geometric nonlinearities are established and validated against an independent series of test results. A parametric study is conducted to investigate effects of various parameters including material properties of steel and infilled concrete, thickness of the steel faceplates, and depth and width of the composite wall. It is concluded that increasing concrete strength and wall depth can significantly enhance both the axial and bending resistances of the PDSCWs. However, increasing the yield stress and thickness of the steel faceplates can only enhance the bending resistance of the PDSCWs. Therefore, compared to the PDSCWs with high strength steel, using high strength concrete is more effective to enhance the structural behaviour of PDSCWs. Moreover, a sectional analysis method is proposed to determine N-M interaction curves for PDSCWs under combined compression and bending. It is demonstrated that the N-M interaction curves determined by the proposed analytical method agree well with the FE results. Hence, the proposed sectional analysis method and the resulting N-M interaction curves are sufficiently reliable, and they can be used for designing PDSCWs with re-entrant profiled faceplates.