Abstract: To investigate the effect of steel plate buckling on the axial compression bearing capacities of double steel-concrete composite (DSCC) shear walls, the finite element models were built using ABAQUS in accordance with four axial tests of DSCC shear walls. In the numerical models, concrete was modeled with solid elements, steel plate with shell element and shear connectors with nonlinear spring element SpringA. Moreover, the nonlinear behavior of materials and initial imperfection of steel plates were taken into account in the analysis. After the validation of numerical models, the effects of different parameters on the local buckling of steel plates were investigated, and the formula to calculate the buckling stress was obtained. The numerical results indicate that: if the local buckling goes through the transverse section of steel wall plates, the failure mode is concrete crushing at the buckling position, and if no buckling occurs, the failure mode is yielding in the steel plates； when the width of side steel plates is small, no buckling occurs at the side plates. Based on the buckling analysis and ultimate stress state analysis, a new approach was proposed to compute the axial compression bearing capacity of DSCC shear walls with the consideration of steel plate buckling. The results show that: compared with the calculation formula in the standard JGJ/T 380—2015, the proposed approach improves the accuracy and stability in estimating the axial bearing capacity and can be used for further research and engineering practice of DSCC shear walls.