Seismic Performance of Low-Yield-Point Steel Plate Shear Walls Under Horizontal Cyclic Load

Based on the shear bearing capacity, a specimen of single-span single-story low-yield-point (LYP) steel plate shear wall was designed, and a horizontal cyclic loading test was carried out on this specimen. The seismic behavior of the LYP steel plate shear wall was investigated from the different aspects of failure phenomenon, hysteresis loops, skeleton curve, ductility, lateral stiffness, energy dissipation capacity, horizontal load, and overturning moment distribution. The results revealed that the wall plate of the LYP steel plate shear walls buckled extensively along the diagonal region at the end of the test, and the maximum out-of-plane displacement reached 31.8 mm. The relative ductility coefficient of the whole structure obtained from the experiment was 3.25, and 322.2% of the yield energy was dissipated in the last loading stage. When the column was in the elastic state before yielding, the wall plate bore 73 to 89% of the horizontal load and 54 to 69% of the total overturning moment. This indicates from the above conclusion that the LYP steel plate shear wall can be potentially severed as an excellent lateral force resisting structural system with remarkable seismic performance employed in the high-intensity seismic fortification areas.