MODELING OF NONLINEAR CYCLIC LOAD BEHAVIOR OF I-SHAPED COMPOSITE STEEL-CONCRETE SHEAR WALLS OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS

In recent years steel-concrete composite shear walls have been widely used in enormous high-rise buildings. Due to high strength and ductility, enhanced stiffness, stable cycle characteristics and large energy absorption, such walls can be adopted in the auxiliary building; surrounding the reactor containment structure of nuclear power plants to resist lateral forces induced by heavy winds and severe earthquakes. This paper demonstrates a set of nonlinear numerical studies on I-shaped composite steel-concrete shear walls of the nuclear power plants subjected to reverse cyclic loading. A three-dimensional finite element model is developed using ABAQUS by emphasizing on constitutive material modeling and element type to represent the real physical behavior of complex shear wall structures. The analysis escalates with parametric variation in steel thickness sandwiching the stipulated amount of concrete panels. Modeling details of structural components, contact conditions between steel and concrete, associated boundary conditions and constitutive relationships for the cyclic loading are explained. Later, the load versus displacement curves, peak load and ultimate strength values, hysteretic characteristics and deflection profiles are verified with experimental data. The convergence of the numerical outcomes has been discussed to conclude the remarks.