Behaviour of double-corrugated steel plates under cyclic in-plane shear loading: An experimental study

Abstract

Double-corrugated plate shear wall (DCPSW) is a new member developed based on the single-corrugated plate shear wall (CPSW). Due to its improved stability and shear resistance, it has good application potential in buildings subjected to large shear loads. Up to now, the reported experimental data of DCPSWs under cyclic loading are limited and the shear behaviour of double-corrugated steel plates in DCPSWs is needed to be further understood. This paper presents an experimental study on the double-corrugated steel plate under cyclic in-plane shear loading. Ten specimens were tested and the varied parameters included the height of corrugation, the width of subpanels in corrugation, the spacing of connecting bolts and the number of bolt columns at each valley region. The experimental results in terms of failure modes, load versus deformation hysteretic curves, skeleton curves, energy dissipation and stiffness degradation were discussed. By analysing the effects of important parameters, the mechanism of the double-corrugated steel plate under pure shear loads was revealed. It is found that the specimens failed with shear buckling which behaved as either global buckling or local buckling. Due to the combination effect, the shear resistance of the double-corrugated plate was higher than that of the single-corrugated plate with the same steel volume. Increasing the corrugation height is beneficial to improving the shear buckling load and maintaining the energy dissipation capacity. It is suggested that the ratio of corrugation height to thickness is higher than 15 in the design of the double-corrugated plate.