Mechanism analysis and deformation prediction of steel-concrete-steel composite walls under coupled fire exposure and explosion

Steel-concrete-steel composite (SCS) wall has been applied in high-rise buildings and nuclear power plants. Its performance under accidental and extreme loads during the whole life cycle deserves attention. Considering that fires and explosions often occur simultaneously, and that the mechanical properties of steel and concrete are deteriorated significantly at high temperatures, this leads to serious degradation of blast resistance of structural members. In this context, a total of 120 finite element (FE) models of SCS walls under combined fire and explosion were established using ABAQUS software. First, the FE models were verified based on existing fire resistance tests and explosion tests at room temperature on SCS walls. Then, the blast resistance mechanism of SCS walls was analyzed, and the influences of key parameters, including fire duration, explosion charge, steel plate ratio, material strength, tie bars spacing and axial compression ratio, on the explosion resistance were investigated. Finally, based on the single-degree of freedom method, the formulas were proposed to predict the maximum deformation of SCS walls under combined fire exposure and explosion. The results show that SCS walls primarily exhibit overall bending failure under coupled fire exposure and explosion. With the increase of fire duration, the contribution of the steel plate on the fire-exposed side to the energy dissipation decreases, and the plastic deformation of the steel plate on the non-fire-exposed side gradually becomes the main energy dissipation component. Fire duration, explosion charge and steel strength significantly affect the blast resistance of SCS walls under fire conditions. When exposed to fire for 90 minutes, the maximum mid-span deformation decreases by approximately 22%, as the steel yield strength increases from 235 to 460 MPa. However, the influence of the concrete strength is minor. The maximum deformation of SCS walls can be reasonably predicted by the proposed formulas based on the single-degree of freedom method under coupled fire exposure and explosion.