Appraisal of steel plate shear wall effect in the dynamic responce of reinforced concrete structures

This study aimed to evaluate the effect of using steel plate shear walls (SPSWs) on the dynamic response of reinforced concrete (RC) structures. For this, two types of RC frames, namely, ductile and nominally ductile RC frames were used. Each frame structure had five storeys and three-bays. The first storey height was 4 m while the height of the other storeys was 3 m. To upgrade the seismic performance of the existing structures, a special unstiffened SPSW system was incorporated into the middle-bays of each frame. During the design of the SPSWs, horizontal boundary elements (HBEs) and vertical boundary elements (VBEs) were used. The SPSWs with 2 m wall length and 3 mm thickness in accordance to AISC Seismic Provisions was utilized for all frames. In the pushover analysis, the first mode load distribution and uniform load distribution were used. In the dynamic analysis, a set of ground motion records compatible with the code design spectrum was employed. As a seismic hazard level, 2% probability of exceedance in 50-year period was taken into consideration. As a ground motion, 1978 Tabas-Iran, 1992 Cape-Mendocino, 1994 Northridge, 1999 Chi-Chi, and 1999 Hector-Mine earthquake accelerations were utilized. The seismic response of the ductile and nominally ductile RC frames with and without SPSWs were examined comparatively. It was observed that both the ductile and the nominally ductile RC frame structures with SPSWs behaved very well under the actions of seismic loads.