HYSTERETIC BEHAVIOR OF BUCKLING-RESTRAINED STEEL PLATE SHEAR WALL

Steel Plate Shear Wall (SPSW) has been used increasingly in Asia and North America as part of the lateral force resisting system over the last three decades. The main disadvantage of SPSW relates to service problems such as buckling sounds and out-of-plane displacement. The pinching shape in hysteretic loops is another shortcoming in SPSW due to the repeated shear buckling occurring in infill steel panel. An innovative Buckling-Restrained Steel Plate shear Wall (BR-SPSW), which adds R.C. cover plates on both sides of the infill panel, was presented and studied. The R.C. cover plates can prevent the infill panel from buckling, thus to mitigate all the disadvantages of SPSW referred to above. Finite element method is employed to investigate the static and hysteretic behavior of the BR-SPSW. Analysis results show that the elastic lateral stiffness and energy dissipating capacity are improved significantly, and the BR-SPSW system can be applied in high-rise buildings especially in seismic zones to resist lateral forces induced by wind and earthquake. Formulae for determining the elastic lateral stiffness and the ultimate shear capacity are proposed, which can be conveniently used in the preliminary design of BR-SPSW system.