Numerical assessment of effect of opening on behavior of perforated steel shear walls

Abstract

The steel plate shear wall (SPSW) system showed satisfactory behavior during two powerful earthquakes of Northridge, United States, and Kobe, Japan, as well as laboratory tests; hence, its application in earthquake-prone countries has increased. In order to overcome construction issues and accelerate the buckling of the stiffening plates of these steel walls, the idea of using perforated steel plate shear walls has been proposed. In addition, in many cases, due to architectural demands and utility passage, openings are created in these walls. In this paper, the behavior of SPSWs with perforated panels is investigated. In order to conduct a parametric study, the effect of circular and elliptic openings in the steel panel of the shear walls, as well as the arrangement, layout, and number of these openings on the structural behavior, has been examined in terms of the energy absorption level, the total load-carrying capacity of the system (hysteresis curve), and also the resulting stress distribution. The finite element ABAQUS software was used to model the specimens. The results of the parametric study on 17 finite element models under cyclic loading in the form of displacement indicated that in general, as the opening percentage increased, the shear capacity and the energy absorption level of the wall experienced significant reduction, with a mean 20% reduction in the energy absorption capacity by increasing the opening percentage ten-fold from 1.45 to 14.5%. Moreover, in case of the same opening percentage, the models with horizontal elliptic holes generally had the highest shear capacity, followed by models with circular openings.