Analysis of steel plate shear walls

In the past three decades the steel plate shear wall (SPSW), also known as the steel plate wall (SPW) has been used in various buildings throughout Japan and North America. In this paper, existing literature on steel plate shear walls is briefly reviewed. An experimental test conducted and reported thereafter by Sabouri-Ghomi and Golhaki in 2008 was simulated using the finite element method to demonstrate pure lateral load-displacement behaviour of a 3-storey SPSW. A good agreement was obtained. The effects of different plate thicknesses and the introduction of a vertical stiffener on post buckling behaviour and ultimate capacity of the steel plate shear walls are demonstrated using finite element methods for single storey models. Results show that increasing the plate thickness up to the certain value (b/t≥400 from the present study), improves both system capacity and post buckling behaviour of the steel plate shear wall.