Theoretical and numerical analysis and design of stiffened steel plate shear walls having unequal subpanels

Abstract

SummaryFollowing the adequate seismic behavior, the steel plate shear walls have gained popularity among the designers worldwide, and many buildings have been designed employing such walls as their lateral load‐carrying system. Despite the fact that the steel shear walls using unstiffened thin plates outnumber the ones benefitting from stiffeners, it should be kept in mind that application of stiffeners prevents the buckling induced by lateral loads such earthquake or wind. On the other hand, the stiffeners enhance the stiffness and shear strength of the plate. Accordingly, this paper deals with an analytical and numerical investigation into the steel plates stiffened by unequaled vertical and horizontal stiffeners. The results obtained for the analyses led to the development of the analytical relations to compute the shear strength, stiffness, and displacement. To validate the proposed relations, analytical outputs were compared with those obtained from the numerical investigation indicating great accuracy of the proposed analytical relations. Moreover, in this paper, the design process of the stiffened steel plate shear walls has been presented based on the interaction between the plate and frame. The results indicate the addition of stiffeners to the steel plate, improves its shear strength by 6 to 15%.