Steel-Plate Composite Wall to Reinforced Concrete Wall Mechanical Connection – Part 2: In-Plane and Out-of-Plane Shear

In safety-related nuclear facilities, steel-plate composite (SC) walls are often used in combination with reinforced concrete (RC) walls or foundations. The design demands need to be transferred between the two different structural systems through appropriate connection design. A design procedure was developed by the authors, and it was evaluated by conducting two full scale tests for SC wall-to-RC wall mechanical connections subjected to out-of-plane flexure. This paper presents a brief description of the design procedure as well as the experimental and numerical investigations conducted to further evaluate the design procedure. The focus was on the performance, strength, and governing failure mode of SC wall-to-RC wall mechanical connection under in-plane and out-of-plane shear. The investigation results include global force-displacement and applied force-strain responses. The paper also presents overall damage progression in terms of concrete cracking patterns. The experimentally observed and numerically predicted results indicate that the proposed connection design procedure is suitable and conservative for SC wall-to-RC wall mechanical connections.