Experimental and Numerical Study of an Innovative Infill Web-Strips Steel Plate Shear Wall with Rigid Beam-to-Column Connections

Steel plate shear walls (SPSWs) offer good energy dissipation capability when subjected to seismic forces as a robust lateral load resisting structure. This research investigated the cyclic behaviors of innovative infill web-strips (IWS-SPSW) and conventional unstiffened steel plate shear (USPSW) experimentally and numerically. As a result, two specimens of a 1:3 scale three-story single-bay IWS-SPSW and USPSW were fabricated and tested under cyclic lateral loading. Rigid moment-resistant connections were used for the steel plate shear wall beam-column connection. The steel shear walls with infill web strips showed high ductility and less shear load-bearing than the USPSW. The hysteresis results showed that the IWS-SPSW had high energy dissipation with no severe beam-columns damages. On the other hand, the USPSW displayed severe post-buckling, infill panel cracks, and first-floor column damages. Moreover, the IWS-SPSW shear strength did not fall in the test specimen beyond 2.5% average story drift, where the structure exhibited great seismic behavior. FE models were created and validated with experimental data. It has been proven that the infill web-strips can affect an SPSW system's high performance and overall energy dissipation. From a parametric study, the material features of the infill web-strips, such as steel strength and thickness, can enhance the system's impact even more.