Cyclic Inelastic Behavior of Concrete Filled Sandwich Panel Walls Subjected to In-Plane Flexure

Published February 25, 2019 This content is archived.

Graduate Students: Yasser Alzeni

Principal Investigator: Michel Bruneau

Project Completion Date: 08-27-2014

Research was conducted on concrete filled steel sandwich panel walls (CFSSP-Walls) in order to investigate the ductility and seismic performance of this structural system under in-plane flexure. 

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Research was conducted on concrete filled steel sandwich panel walls (CFSSP-Walls) in order to investigate the ductility and seismic performance of this structural system under in-plane flexure. The research focused on walls which have an aspect ratio (height to cross section depth), h/W, over 2, such that the ductile behavior of the wall is induced by developing the plastic moment capacity of the cross section, Mp.  In the experimental program, 4 CFSSP-Walls specimens were tested under quasi-static cyclic loading. These walls were divided into two groups, namely: Group NB and B.  Group NB consisted of walls with no boundary elements, where the specimens end flanges consisted of half round  Hollow Steel Sections (HSS) in order to avoid stress concentration at the corner welds.  Group B specimens had full round HSS at their ends, serving as boundary elements. and again the two tested walls were different in their S/t ratio, which was taken equal to 25.6 in specimen CFSSP-B1 and 38.4 in specimen CFSSP-B2.  Other differences from group B include the fact that specimen CFSSP-B2 tie bars were fillet welded to the web skin plates (instead of plug welded), and that fiber concrete was used in that specimen in an attempt to reduce the tension cracks in the concrete at ultimate behavior. The four tested specimens were able to attain/exceed the expected plastic moment capacity and were able to sustain their load capacity up to a drift exceeding 3%, which emphasized the ductile behavior of this CFSSP-Walls.

The finite element method was then used to establish models simulating the behavior of the tested walls, and the calibrated models were further used to carry a limited parametric study investigating design parameters that were not covered in the experimental program.  Finally, the experimental and analytical results were used to develop design recommendations for CFSSP-B and CFSSP-NB walls, including expressions to limit the S/t and D/t ratios, and an expression to calculate the required diameter of the tie bars (based on the plastic deformation of the steel skin plate during local buckling). Simple plastic theory was used to derive expressions to calculate the plastic moment capacity of CFSSP-NB and CFSSP-B walls.

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Sponsor

This research project was funded, in part, by the American Institute for Steel Construction (AISC).