Numerical analysis on steel-concrete-steel sandwich plates by damage plasticity model: From materials to structures

Steel-concrete-steel (SCS) sandwich type of ice-resistant wall has been developed for arctic offshore structures. This paper develops a three-dimensional damage plasticity based finite element model (FEM) to simulate the ultimate strength behaviour of SCS sandwich structure under concentrated loads. The FEM offered detailed simulations on the complex geometry of hundreds of studs, complex interactions of these connectors with the concrete, and mechanical nonlinearities of the steel and concrete materials. Concrete damage plasticity model was used to simulate the post-peak softening of concrete, and continuum damage model (CDM) was developed to phenomenologically simulate the damage evolution in the steel materials. The key parameters in the CDM were calibrated by the uniaxial tensile tests on the steel coupons. The accuracy of the FE simulation was checked by nine full scale tests. The validations proved that the developed FEM simulate well the ultimate strength behaviours of the SCS sandwich plates under concentrated loads in terms of load-deflection curves, ultimate resistances, and failure modes in the steel plates, studs and concrete core. Through the FE simulations, the failure modes corresponding to different peak resistances were analysed and recognized. Finally, the FE simulation procedures on SCS sandwich plate with CDM and CDPM were recommended.