In-plane behavior and design of rectangular SC wall piers without boundary elements

This paper focuses on the in-plane behavior, analysis, and design of steel-plate composite (SC) wall piers without boundary elements. A series of SC wall pier specimens with aspect ratios (wall height-to-length ratios, h/l_w) ranging from 0.6 to 1.0 were tested under cyclic loading until failure. The results include the lateral load-displacement (V-Δ) responses of the specimens along with observations of steel plate local buckling and concrete crushing. Detailed 3D finite element models of the SC wall specimens were developed and benchmarked using the experimental results. The models explicitly accounted for the effects of geometric nonlinearity and material inelasticity including steel local buckling, concrete crushing, and tension fracture. The benchmarked models were used to conduct parametric studies. The parameters included were the wall aspect ratio (h/l_w), reinforcement ratio (ρ), and wall thickness (T). The experimental results and parametric studies indicated that the lateral load capacity of SC wall piers with aspect ratios greater than or equal to 0.6 is governed by the flexural yielding of the steel faceplates in tension, and by local buckling of the steel faceplates and crushing of the concrete infill in compression. The experimental and analytical results were used to propose preliminary design equations for predicting the lateral load capacity of SC wall piers without boundary elements.