Seismic behavior of code designed steel plate shear walls

Abstract The AISC Seismic Design Provisions now include capacity design requirements for steel plate shear walls, which consist of thin web plates that infill frames of steel beams, denoted horizontal boundary elements (HBEs), and columns, denoted vertical boundary elements (VBEs). The thin unstiffened web plates are expected to buckle in shear at low load levels and develop tension field action, providing ductility and energy dissipation through tension yielding of the web plate. HBEs are designed for stiffness and strength requirements and are expected to anchor the tension field formation in the web plates. VBEs are designed for yielding of web plates and plastic hinge formation at the ends of the HBEs. This paper assesses the behavior of code designed SPSWs. A series of walls are designed and their behavior is evaluated using nonlinear response history analysis for ground motions representing different hazard levels. It is found that designs meeting current code requirements satisfy maximum interstory drift requirements considering design level earthquakes and have maximum interstory drifts of less than 5% for maximum considered earthquakes. Web plate ductility demands are found to be significantly larger for low rise walls than for high rise walls where higher modes of vibrations impact the response. The percentage of story shear resisted by the web plate relative to the boundary frame is found to be between 60% and 80% and is relatively independent of panel aspect ratio, wall height, or hazard level, but is affected by transitions in plate thickness. Maximum demands in VBEs in design level shaking are found to be considerably less than those found from capacity design for SPSWs with 9 or more stories.