Stability of buckling-restrained steel plate shear walls with inclined-slots: Theoretical analysis and design recommendations

This paper presents a novel buckling-restrained steel plate shear wall with inclined slots called slotted SPSW to be used as an energy dissipation device for earthquake resistance. In the slotted SPSW, a steel plate with inclined slotted holes is sandwiched in between two external concrete panels which provide lateral restraint to achieve stable energy dissipation under cyclic reversal loading. Theoretical analysis and finite element monotonic pushover analyses are conducted to investigate the stability of slotted SPSWs. Global buckling and local buckling resistances of slotted SPSWs are determined. Some key parameters, such as the gap between steel plate and concrete panels, bolt spacing, width of steel strips, and steel panel slenderness, are investigated through numerical analyses. The shear force and lateral drift behavior of the slotted SPSW is found to be affected by the physical gap between the concrete panels and inner steel plate. The minimum concrete panel thickness for providing the effective lateral restraint to prevent buckling failure of the inner steel plate is determined based on the bolt spacing.