Experimental and numerical study on the structural performance of auxetic-shaped, ring-shaped and unstiffened steel plate shear walls

Abstract

Structural engineers have always tried to enhance the seismic performance of existing building systems by introducing new solutions to increase the amount of ductility along with dissipated seismic energy. In this regard, this paper presents a new system to improve the structural behavior of unstiffened steel plate shear walls and eliminate the known defects of these efficient seismic-resistant systems. One of the significant drawbacks of unstiffened steel plate shear walls is the pinching of their hysteretic curve that happens due to the early out-of-plane buckling of the infill plate under small shear forces. Therefore, the primary purpose of this study is to reduce the amount of out-of-plane buckling using perforated plates with periodic auxetic-shaped cellular forms, which have a negative Poisson's ratio. To this aim, a parametric study is conducted on 255 finite element models of auxetic-shaped steel plate shear walls using ABAQUS software to select the most efficient configuration considering some design parameters such as the amount of out-of-plane buckling, energy dissipation and strength. Then, two full-scale specimens of the selected models are investigated experimentally under a quasi-static cyclic loading history. Finally, regarding this fact that for broader adoption of a new system, besides its structural performance, the total weight of that structural system is a determinant factor, two 5- and 10-story plane building models with unstiffened and auxetic-shaped steel plate shear walls are designed to have the life safety performance level at the BSE-1 hazard level and they are evaluated by performing nonlinear static analyses. The results show that auxetic-shaped steel plate shear walls, while improving the seismic performance of a building, reduce its weight.