The effect of design parameters on the behavior of steel plate shear walls

Steel plate shear walls (SPSW) are structural elements with high energy dissipation capacity, high ductility and high rigidity. In previous studies, various design issues on steel plate shear walls under lateral loading have been investigated using analytical and experimental methods. Researchers generally investigated the effect of design parameters within the drift limits found in the regulations. However, it has been observed that no studies examining the effect of all these parameters altogether. In this study, the effects of all these parameters on ultimate drift ratio, failure mechanism and infill plate-frame shear force distribution were numerically investigated. For this purpose, three-story, single-span SPSW models with moment-resisting beam to column connections were created using the finite element method. Models were subjected to monotonic and cyclic loading. A comprehensive overview of the SPSW behavior is provided to determine the optimal combination of design parameters so that better cyclic behavior can be obtained during the preliminary design phase. As a result, it has been observed that when the column flexibility parameter of the vertical boundary elements is limited to 2.1, many undesirable failure mechanism formations are eliminated. It was also concluded that the contribution of the steel infill plate shear force to the total strength should be limited to 75% to obtain improved behavior. Depending on the design parameters, reliable equations were suggested that predict the ultimate drift ratio and the force distribution of the infill plate and frame.