Cyclic behavior of coupled steel plate shear walls with different beam-to-column connections

Abstract

In a coupled steel plate shear wall system, the interaction between two steel plate shear wall piers provided by the coupling beams improves the overturning capacity of the structure. Quasi-static cyclic tests were conducted on three 1/3 scaled specimens to investigate the inelastic behavior with several different features. Each specimen had a different coupling beam-to-column connection, namely, a welded moment connection, a bidirectional bolted connection, and a cantilever endplate connection. The hysteretic behavior, envelope curves, ductility, and strength and stiffness degradation of the specimens were studied. The experimental results demonstrate that the introduction of concrete-filled square steel tubes is effective in resisting the demands imposed by the web plates and that the coupled steel plate shear wall system has the characteristics to provide good seismic performance. The specimen that had welded moment connections suffered weld fracture of the coupling beam-to-column connections while the coupling beams of the two other specimens had ductile shear yielding followed by tearing and fracture of webs. The strength and stiffness degradation of three specimens were similar and stable. Finite element models were developed to simulate the nonlinear behavior of the specimen that had welded moment connections and to study the benefits of employing modified connections with wing plate and reduced-beam section configurations. The modeling showed that wing plate and reduced-beam section connection could reduce demands at the critical welds and delay weld fracture. The connection type was found to have little influence on the internal force of the columns or the overall system behavior.