Shell strip experiments and three‐dimensional model for shear critical shell elements subjected to out‐of‐plane loads

In the design and assessment of thick concrete shell structures subjected to out‐of‐plane loads, there is often a need to evaluate the response of shear critical components or to evaluate the influence of combined loading on shear response. This paper first presents the results from three shear‐critical large‐scale shell strip experiments subjected to combinations of shear, moment, and axial load. The experiments were monitored with digital image correlation equipment to capture the full deformation field response throughout loading. The paper then presents a simplified three‐dimensional model to predict the shear response of shear critical shell elements. The model called the 3D SEM, is compared to the shell strip experiments presented in this paper and is used to predict the interaction of in‐plane versus out‐of‐plane shear for several series of shear critical shell tests in the literature.