Effect of Different Infill Types and Welding Separation on the Cyclic Behavior of Steel Shear Walls

Abstract

Currently, the steel plate shear wall (SPSW) is commonly used in high-rise steel buildings as a lateral load resisting system. The SPSW consists of the boundary frame and infill plate. The objectives of this work are to study the effect of same weight different infill plate types, the effect of boundary frame characteristics, and the effect of infill plate weld separation on the seismic behavior of the SPSWs. A numerical method was proposed to have a comprehensive comparison of seismic behaviors of different types of SPSWs, having the same weight. The model was validated by using previously published numerical and experimental works. The study covers unstiffened (USPSW), stiffened (SSPSW), and corrugated steel plate shear wall (CSPSW). Similarly, the effect of boundary frame stiffness and welding separation characteristics between the plate and boundary frame will be studied, and key issues, such as load-carrying capacity, stiffness, and energy-dissipation capacity were discussed deeply. It was found that the SSPSW has better seismic behavior than USPSW and CSPSW. SSPSW has a higher load-carrying capacity than USPSW, and CSPSW by about 14, 24%, respectively. USPSW is more sensitive to the stiffness of the boundary frame than CSPSW. The plate welding separation has a greater impact on the initial stiffness than load-carrying capacity. When plate-column welding separation occurs, the initial stiffness, and the energy dissipation capacity reduces by about 21%, and 14%. Whereas, when the plate-beam separation occurs, the initial stiffness and energy dissipation capacity reduce by about 36%, and 20.5%.