Study of a new type of steel slit shear wall with initially twisted links

Abstract

SummaryTo address the issue of strength and stiffness degradation of steel slit shear walls (SSSWs) after the occurrence of out‐of‐plane buckling at large lateral deformation, a new type of SSSW made by assembling initially twisted steel plate links is proposed in the present work. Three types of SSSW specimens, with vertical slits, narrow rhomboid openings, and initially twisted steel plate links, respectively, were manufactured and tested under quasi‐static cyclic loading. Test results showed that the SSSW assembled by initially twisted steel plate links had no strength degradation and a nearly constant positive second stiffness throughout the whole loading process with a maximum drift ratio of 6%, whereas the other two SSSW specimens exhibited obvious degradation of strength, stiffness and energy dissipation capacity. The new SSSW also had much smaller residual strength, and its deformation capacity was largely improved. The method to predict the elastic stiffness of the new SSSW was proposed, by which the predicted results agreed well with test results. A user‐defined macromodel was developed to simulate its force‐deformation hysteretic behavior.