Evaluation of ultimate capacity of semi-supported steel shear walls

In this paper, the semi-supported steel shear wall (SSSW) that has been proposed as an alternative to the traditional type of steel shear wall is introduced. The problem of calculating the ultimate capacity of shear walls (with emphasis on its semi-supported type) is addressed. A new method for evaluating the ultimate shear capacity of given SSSW especially when it undergoes bending moments is proposed. The method determines the maximum shear capacity based on the lower bound theory of plastic design. The obtained results of this approach are compared to those of the finite element method (FEM). The comparison shows that the proposed method produces similar results to finite element analysis; meanwhile it is much faster and requires less computation. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.