Experimental compressive behavior of novel composite wall with different width-to-thickness ratios

Double skin composite wall system owns several structural merits in terms of high load-carrying capacity, large axial stiffness, and favorable ductility. A recently proposed form of truss connector was used to bond the steel plates to the concrete core to achieve good composite action. The structural behavior of rectangular high walls under compression and T-shaped high walls under eccentric compression has been investigated by the authors. Furthermore, the influences of the truss spacings, the wall width, and the faceplate thickness have been previously studied by the authors on short walls under uniform compression. This paper experimentally investigated the effect of width-to-thickness ratio on the compressive behavior of short walls. Compressive tests were conducted on three short specimens with different width-to-thickness ratios. Based on the test results, it is found that the composite wall shows high compressive resistance and good ductility. The walls fail by local buckling of steel plates and crushing of concrete core. It is also observed that width-to-thickness ratio has great influence on the compressive resistance, initial stiffness, and strain distribution across the section. Finally, the test results are compared with the predictions by modern codes.