Behavior of Steel Plate Shear Wall Subjected To Lateral Loads

Abstract

In recent years, the need for lateral loads upgrades in building structures has increased due to the growing importance of steel plate shear walls (SPSW) for earthquake and wind resistant design. SPSW systems offer advantages such as robust post-buckling strength, substantial ductility, stable hysteretic characteristics, and high initial stiffness compared to conventional lateral load resisting systems. They allow for less structural wall thickness and lesser building weight compared to concrete shear walls, reducing construction time, and allowing for fast erecting without a curing period. Structures can be subjected to dynamic loads such as wind, waves, traffic, earthquake, and blasts, which can cause critical stresses in buildings, leading to excessive lateral sway and undesirable stresses and vibrations. Design and structural evaluation of building systems subjected to lateral loads are crucial. The present generation faces the challenge of providing adequate strength and stability of buildings against lateral loads. Different lateral load resisting systems are used in high-rise buildings due to the concern of earthquake-induced lateral loads. Steel plate shear walls (SPSW) have been extensively used as lateral load resisting systems in the past few decades. They consist of steel infill plates surrounded by boundary beams and columns and can be constructed in two types: unstiffened and stiffened infill steel plates. A cantilevered vertical plate girder is idealized as a SPSW system, with the steel infill plates acting as the web, boundary columns as flanges, and boundary beams as transverse stiffeners. SPSW systems have been researched since the early 1970s, with the most common research and application in North America being the unstiffened, thin SPSW system, while stiffened SPSW systems are more common in European area. Regardless of the system used, the determination of whether a SPSW system is the right application in general is important.