Effect of Imperfections on the Compression Behavior of SC Walls

摘要

Steel-plate composite (SC) walls are increasingly being used in the construction of safety related nuclear facilities. Appendix N9 of the Supplement No.1 to AISC N690-12 (N690s1) provides specifications for design of SC walls. SC walls need to be designed for the SC specific limit state of faceplate buckling. The spacing of steel anchors and tie bars can be checked to ensure that limit state of faceplate yielding precedes faceplate buckling. The compression behavior of SC walls is affected by faceplate slenderness, faceplate waviness, shear stud and tie bar spacing, concrete pour height, and strength of faceplates and concrete infill. There is a need to better understand how these parameters modify the compression behavior and failure mode of SC walls. This paper outlines a procedure to incorporate the effects of these parameters on the compression behavior of SC walls. The implementation of the procedure is illustrated by means of a sample analysis. Benchmarked finite element models have been developed to study the effect of imperfection, and concrete casting pressure on the compression capacity of SC walls. It is observed that nonslender faceplates do not undergo significant reduction in SC wall capacity due to imperfection and concrete casting pressure. However, the capacity of SC walls with slender faceplates is expected to reduce significantly. The paper presents a specimen matrix discussing the future work that will be performed to understand the effect of various parameters on the compression behavior of SC walls.