Out-of-Plane Bending and Shear Behaviors of Steel Plate-Concrete Walls for Nuclear Power Plants

Abstract

The steel plate-concrete structure, with its advantages of modular construction, good seismic capacity, and strong impact resistance, has been gradually replacing the reinforced concrete structure in the containment vessel and internal workshop structure of nuclear power plants in recent years. In this study, the out-of-plane single-point loading test and parametric finite element simulation analysis were conducted on five steel plate-concrete wall slab specimens with different stud spacings, shear span ratios, and steel contents. Results showed that the steel plate-concrete wall slab under the out-of-plane load had the same failure mode as that of an ordinary reinforced concrete wall. The out-of-plane shear capacity of the steel plate-concrete wall slab increased significantly in the case of numerous studs. With the increase in shear span ratio, steel plate-concrete members suffered a bending failure. When the steel content was low, they had diagonal tension failure, such as a rare-reinforced concrete wall. The out-of-plane bending and shear mechanism of the steel plate-concrete shear wall was studied theoretically, and the calculation formulas of the bending and shearing capacities were derived.