Estimation of Seismic Energy Dissipation for Steel Slit Shear Walls Considering Out-of-Plane Buckling

Abstract

Steel slit shear walls (SSSWs), made by cutting slits in steel plates, are increasingly adopted in seismic design of buildings for energy dissipation. This paper estimates the seismic energy dissipation capacity of SSSWs considering out-of-plane buckling. In the experimental study, three SSSW specimens were designed with different width-thickness ratios and aspect ratios and tested under quasi-static cyclic loading. Test results showed that the width-thickness ratio of the links dominated the occurrence of out-of-plane buckling, which produced pinching in the hysteresis and thus reduced the energy dissipation capacity. Out-of-plane buckling occurred earlier for the links with a larger width-thickness ratio, and vice versa. Refined finite element model was built for the SSSW specimens, and validated by the test results. The concept of average pinching parameter was proposed to quantify the degree of pinching in the hysteresis. Through the parametric analysis, an equation was derived to estimate the average pinching parameter of the SSSWs with different design parameters. A new method for estimating the energy dissipation of the SSSWs considering out-of-plane buckling was proposed, by which the predicted energy dissipation agreed well with the test results.