Numerical Analysis of Structural Steel Reinforced Concrete Wall

Abstract

A nonlinear finite element analysis is performed for axialy and laterally loaded structural steel reinforced concrete walls. Since simulating this kind of stuctures in ABAQUS is difficult, several simulations are made to find the correct model with satisfying accuracy. Both geometric and material nonlinearities are included in the Finite Element model; a concrete damage plasticity model capable of predicting both compressive and tensile failures is used. Numerical simulation is compared with the experimental results published by other researchers. The Simulation responses agree well with the corresponding experimental results for predicting the load carrying capacity, ductility and failure mode of Structural Steel Reinforced Concrete (SRC) walls but the hysteresis loop became a little off due to a limitation of material models integrated in ABAQUS 6.13. Using the developed model, parametric study is conducted to investigate the effect of structural steel shape, axial load ratio, aspect ratio and concrete grade on the load carrying capacity of wall and also sensitivity analysis have been done for the selected 5 parameters, which include thickness of wall and structural steel flange thickness for geometic parameters, and yield strength of structural steel, yield strength of reinforcement bar and concrete grade for material strength parameters. A total of 56 models have been used to do the parametric study. The result shows structural steel with channel shape exhibit high load carring capacity , high axial load ratio results in high load resistant but lessr ductility, aspect ratio has an inverse relation ship with capacity. Concrete grade has a direct relation with the capacity of the wall but does not have any effect on the ductility and failure mode of the shear wall which most likely is because of the failure of concrete at early stage making contribution of the concrete less for ductility. From the sensitivity analysis, the most sensitive parmeter found in this study is thickness of flange of structural steel from geometric parameters and yield strength of structural steel from the material strength parameters.