Hongmei Xiao

Under the blast loads, the energy-absorbing structure significantly influences the anti-explosion performance of the concrete-filled bilateral steel plate composite shear walls with the replaceable protective structure (RPS-SCS). This paper employs finite element numerical simulation methods to investigate the impact of the replaceable polyurethane foam energy-absorbing structure (PUF) on the anti-explosion performance of composite shear walls. The numerical models were established based on LS-DYNA. The arbitrary Lagrange Euler (ALE) algorithm is adopted to analyze the models under blast loads, and the accuracy of the models is verified based on existing experiments. The structural response and failure modes of concrete-filled bilateral steel plate composite shear walls with the replaceable energy absorbing and protective structure (PUF-RPS-SCS) are obtained from the numerical results. The displacement histories and energy absorption capacity of composite shear walls are obtained and discussed by conducting numerical calculations on parameters such as the thickness of concrete protection structure, the axial load rate, the thickness of the replaceable PUF energy-absorbing structure, and the mass of explosive charges. Numerical results indicate that the blast resistance performance of the shear wall increases with the increase of the replaceable protective structure thickness. The replaceable PUF energy-absorbing structure could effectively absorb the energy generated by blast loads. The set of the replaceable PUF energy-absorbing structure could greatly decrease the deformation of steel plates and core concrete, enhance the structure’s integrity after the explosion and effectively improve the blast resistance performance of the shear wall.

In this research, a protective concrete-filled steel plate composite wall (PSC) is developed, consisting of a core concrete-filled bilateral steel plate composite shear wall and two lateral replaceable surface steel plates with energy-absorbing layers. The PSC wall is characterised by high in-plane seismic performance as well as out-of-plane impact performance. Therefore, it could be employed primarily in high-rise constructions, civil defence initiatives, and buildings with stringent structural safety criteria. To investigate the out-of-plane low-velocity impact behaviour of the PSC wall, fine finite element models are validated and developed. Then, the influence of geometrical and dynamic loading parameters on its impact behaviour is investigated. The results show that the replaceable energy-absorbing layer could significantly decrease the out-of-plane displacement and plastic displacement of the PSC wall due to its large plastic deformation, which could absorb a significantly large amount of impact energy. Meanwhile, the PSC wall could maintain high in-plane seismic performance when subjected to impact load. The plastic yield-line theoretical model is proposed and utilised to predict the out-of-plane displacement of the PSC wall, and the calculated results agree very well with the simulated results.