Seismic behavior of a buckling-restrained steel plate shear wall with inclined slots

Abstract This paper presents a novel buckling-restrained steel plate shear wall with inclined slots (simply referred as “slotted SPSW”) that can be used as an energy dissipation device of structures. The slotted SPSW consists of boundary members and an inner steel plate with inclined slots sandwiched between two external concrete panels which provide lateral restraints. The steel strips between the inclined slots behave like a series of struts to dissipate the energy through inelastic axial deformation during reversal loading. Theoretical analyses and finite element monotonic pushover analyses are conducted to investigate the general behavior of slotted SPSWs. Calculations for shear resistance is determined to consider the reduction coefficient of inclined slots. Some key parameters, such as the width of steel strips, and steel panel slenderness, are investigated through numerical analyses. A half-scale slotted SPSW quasi-static cyclic test was carried out to provide the data about the general behavior of the slotted SPSWs. When a slotted SPSW is properly detailed and fabricated, bucking failure of the steel strips can be avoided and the slotted SPSW can sustain a roughly 2.8% lateral drift ratio without a reduction of the shear force and energy dissipation ratio.