Compressive behaviour of normal weight concrete confined by the steel face plates in SCS sandwich wall

This paper presented a test program with seven specimens on steel-concrete-steel (SCS) sandwich walls with headed studs (or through connectors) and in-fill concrete core under in-plane compression. The studied parameters in this test program are height of the headed stud, thickness of steel face plate, and type of shear connectors. The test results revealed the influences of these parameters on the ultimate compression behaviour of SCS sandwich walls. Theoretical models were also developed to predict the ultimate compressive resistance of SCS sandwich walls. The developed theoretical models considered confining effect of steel face plates working with shear connectors on compressive resistance of the SCS sandwich wall. This confining stress on the concrete core is determined by the tensile resistance of headed studs used in SCS sandwich walls. Three-dimensional finite element model (FEM) was also developed to simulate the ultimate compressive behaviour of SCS sandwich walls with headed studs and through connectors. The FEM considered the geometric and materials nonlinearities, and made detailed simulation on the stud-concrete interactions. The accuracies of the theoretical models and FEM were checked through validations of predictions against test results.