Experimental cyclic test and failure modes of a full scale enhanced modular steel plate shear wall

Several studies on steel plate shear wall systems have shown that the seismic demand on the vertical boundary elements is extremely large for typical buildings. To overcome this problem, an enhanced approach is introduced in this paper. It involves utilizing not only a modular steel shear panel, but also contains column-independent boundary element which eventually facilitates retrofitting of the existing building. First, a four-story building was designed based on pushover analysis, followed by more accurate finite element analysis to refine the section design parameters. Next, a full scale single-story modular steel shear panel welded to the steel boundary elements was constructed and tested under cyclic load protocol to simulate the hysteresis behavior under severe excitations. The test results show a high initial stiffness, excellent ductility, and significant energy dissipation capacity. Observed failure modes were discussed.