Experimental and numerical investigation of novel partially connected steel plate shear walls

A steel plate shear wall system, consisting of a thin steel plate connected to the boundary frame members, is proposed as lateral load resisting system for use in the multi-storey building. To reduce the potential damage on the boundary elements caused by the tension field action in the steel plate after buckling, the steel plate is partially connected at the corner edges to the boundary frame members by bolts. Two scaled specimens were tested under cyclic loads to investigate the hysteretic behaviour of the partially connected steel plate shear wall (SPSW). Test results showed that the proposed SPSW exhibited good structural performance in terms of initial stiffness, shear resistance, ductility and energy absorption capability. An analytical method was developed to predict the shear resistance of the partially connected SPSW. The shear resistances obtained from the tests were compared with those predicted by the analytical method and a reasonable agreement was observed. In addition, a nonlinear finite element (FE) model was proposed to analyze the behaviour of the partially connected SPSW system. The accuracy of the FE models was verified by comparing the computed results with the cyclic load test results. Parametric analyses were then carried out to study the effects of plate slenderness ratio, plate aspect ratio (width/height), stiffness of the boundary frame members and initial plate imperfection on the lateral load resisting behaviour of the proposed steel plate shear wall system.