Seismic behaviour of steel plate shear walls

Steel plate shear walls are an innovative lateral load-resisting system capable of effectively bracing a building against both wind and earthquake forces. The system consists of vertical steel infill plates one story high and one bay wide connected to the surrounding beams and columns. The plates are installed in one or more bays for the full height of a building to form a stiff cantilever wall. Steel plate shear walls are well-suited for new construction and they also offer a relatively simple means for the seismic upgrading of existing steel or concrete structures.;A large-scale four story, single bay specimen with unstiffened panels was tested under controlled cyclic loading to determine its behaviour under an idealized severe earthquake event. The shear wall had moment-resisting beam-to-column connections, resulting in a lateral load-resisting system that possessed an inherent redundancy. During the test, the specimen endured 30 cycles of loading, including 20 cycles in the inelastic range. Prior to failure of the specimen, the deflection reached in the lowest story was nine times the yield deflection. The test specimen proved to be initially very stiff, showed excellent ductility and energy dissipation characteristics, and exhibited stable behaviour at very large deformations and after many cycles of loading.;Results of another large-scale test to evaluate the performance of the corner detail to be used in the main test specimen are reported. Other ancillary tests included an evaluation of residual stresses in the shear wall frame members and a series of material tests on both the members and infill plates.;A non-linear finite element model for steel plate shear walls was developed using the as-built dimensions and measured material properties of the test specimen. A non-planar initial plate geometry and residual stresses obtained experimentally were included. Cyclic and monotonic load vs. deflection responses and the internal member forces are compared with experimental results.;A simplified method for predicting the monotonic response and two models for predicting the hysteresis behaviour of steel plate shear walls are described. The models account for inelastic behaviour in both the infill panels and the frame members. The predicted behaviour of the four story shear wall specimen is compared with the test results.