Ultimate shear strength of steel-plate composite (SC) walls with boundary elements

Abstract

This paper presents the results from a comprehensive study of the in-plane shear behavior and ultimate shear strength of steel-plate composite (SC) shear walls with flanges or boundary elements. Prior experimental results have demonstrated that as the applied in-plane shear load is increased, the response of the SC wall follows a progression of limit states beginning with elastic behavior, diagonal concrete cracking, yielding of the steel faceplates, and finally compression failure of the concrete infill at ultimate strength. As load levels increase beyond the faceplate yielding limit state, the diagonal compression in the cracked concrete infill is anchored and resisted by the boundary elements. The ultimate strength of the wall system then depends on the yield strength of the steel faceplates and the diagonal compression capacity of the cracked concrete infill. An analytical approach using composite shell theory is developed for calculating the entire in-plane shear force-shear strain response, including the ultimate shear strength and corresponding shear strain, of SC walls with flanges or boundary elements. A series of SC shear panel tests in the literature are modeled and analyzed using nonlinear inelastic finite element models. The analysis results including the detailed responses of the composite section, steel faceplates, and concrete infill are compared with experimental results, and used to calibrate the composite shell theory approach. The proposed, calibrated analytical approach is further verified using the existing database of tests conducted on SC shear walls with flanges or boundary elements. Both the finite element model and the proposed analytical approach can be used to calculate the entire in-plane shear force-shear strain response of SC shear walls with reasonable accuracy.