Analytical Model for Out-of-Plane Behavior of Steel-Plate Composite Wall-to-Wall L-Joints

Abstract

Steel-plate composite (SC) walls intersect each other to form a series of wall-to-wall joints. The most unfavorable stress state of such joint is under out-of-plane lateral loading. According to the literature, using commercial finite-element analysis software is the only method currently available to evaluate the out-of-plane load-displacement response and failure modes of such joint. In order to better understand the mechanism of the joint, taking an SC wall-to-wall L-joint as an example, an analytical model to evaluate the out-of-plane behavior of the joints from these aspects in the absence of special software program requirement was proposed in this study. First, a rigid bar-nonlinear spring system was established to simplify the joints according to the mechanical properties of the SC wall and the core region. Then, in accordance with the material and geometric parameters, the constitutive equation for each type of spring was derived by the corresponding load and boundary conditions. Subsequently, an analytical model of out-of-plane behavior for the joint was proposed. Finally, the accuracy of the proposed model was compared with all available test data, indicating that the model could simulate all possible failure modes and load-displacement responses with reasonable accuracy.