Elastic buckling analysis of horizontally-placed trapezoidally-corrugated steel shear walls stiffened with vertical steel strips

Abstract

By simply adding vertical steel strips evenly spaced on both sides of horizontally-placed trapezoidally-corrugated steel shear walls (TCSPSWs), the ultimate shear resistance and ductility of the TCSPSWs can be effectively improved, particularly for embedded corrugated steel plate with a width greater than the height. Because the shear elastic global buckling loads of steel-strip-stiffened TCSPSWs (STCSPSWs) are critical to the design of their ultimate shear resistance, this study investigates the elastic buckling behaviors of TCSPSWs stiffened with one pair (STCSPSWs-1) and two pairs (STCSPSWs-2) of vertical steel strips. To begin, the elastic buckling loads of the STCSPSWs can be theoretically solved using the theorem of minimum potential energy and the Ritz method based on orthotropic plate theory. It is discovered that as the bending stiffness of the steel strip increases, the elastic buckling coefficients of the STCSPSWs initially increase and then almost remain unchanged. Then, formulas which are more accurate than the existing ones are provided for estimating the elastic shear buckling loads of STCSPSWs-1, and formulas for predicting the elastic buckling load of STCSPSWs-2 are also proposed. Finally, the proposed formulas are validated further by performing finite element elastic buckling analyses. The analytical results of this paper show that the proposed formulas are accurate and can be used to design STCSPSWs in practice.