Shear analysis and design of ductile steel plate walls

During the last 3 decades interest has grown globally in the application of ductile steel plate walls (DSPWs) (or steel plate shear walls) for building lateral load resistance. The supporting theory has evolved from both analytical and experimental research conducted in several countries around the world. The advantages of using DSPWs as the lateral force resisting system in buildings include stable hysteretic characteristics, high plastic energy absorption capacity, and enhanced stiffness, strength and ductility. A significant number of experimental and analytical studies have been carried out to establish analysis and design methods for such lateral resisting systems. Despite these efforts there is still a need for a general analysis and design methodology that not only accounts for the interaction of the plates and the framing system but also can be used to better understand the linear and nonlinear behavior of different DSPW configurations. These configurations include DSPWs with thin or thick steel plates, and with or without stiffeners and openings. In this paper an analytical model of the DSPW that responds to this need and characterizes the structural behavior of these configurations is presented and discussed. The proposed model provides a good understanding of how the different components of the system interact, and is able to properly represent the system's overall hysteretic characteristics, which can be readily incorporated in practical nonlinear analyses of buildings with DSPWs. The effectiveness of the method is demonstrated by comparing the predicted response with results from experimental studies performed by different researchers.