A Stress Distribution of Thin Rectangular Steel Wall Under a Uniform Compression

Abstract

The stress distribution of a steel wall is important in the determination of its shear capacity, e.g. under a wind load or an earthquake load. Since the wall has also to simultaneously carry the gravity load, the influence of this uniform vertical load on the stress distribution is relevant. For a simple-supported thick and square wall, a stress distribution in a cosine form was adequate. However, for an extremely thin wall, a cosine distribution is no longer valid, especially in the post-buckling condition. In this work a three-segment distribution is proposed, i.e. at both edge segments a cosine distribution from edge stress to buckling stress and in the middle segment a constant distribution of buckling stress. To evaluate the proposed distribution, a finite element model using the software ANSYS/LS-DYNA is developed. This model has been verified using the results obtained from own experiments and works done by others. The results show that the proposed stress distribution is able to describe the behavior of thin walls for different aspect ratios and slendernesses. The cosine distribution and the effective width model are also discussed.