Enhancing the performance of steel plate shear walls with partially connected infill plates

Steel plate shear walls (SPSWs) have been widely employed as an efficient and favored system to resist high-rise infrastructures’ lateral loads. In some cases, due to architectural constraints, an opening is required. Detaching the infill plate from the boundary elements reduces the ultimate strength of the system. Nevertheless, the extent of connection between the infill plate and boundary elements should be restricted to preclude direct forces imposed on boundary elements and avoid development of brittle construction patterns. The performance of SPSWs with partially connected infill plates and varying boundary stiffeners have been studied in the present work through the analysis of finite element computational investigations. The computational models cover varying infill plate geometries, infill plate connection with boundary elements, and boundary stiffeners. The process of loading is according to ATC-24 standards and attempts to address a range of challenges in strength, stiffness, and ductility. Ultimately, the study explores the role played by infill plate length, connections and boundary stiffeners in designing SPSW. The current study presents the first systematic quantification of overall performance (strength, stiffness, and ductility) of SPSWs with partially connected infill plates and variable stiffener geometries (5–25 mm) using validated computational models. The addition of boundary stiffeners increases ultimate strength, energy dissipation capacity, and initial stiffness up to 16%, 14% and 13%, respectively. In addition, maintaining 80% of plate length and utilizing boundary stiffeners not only increases the overall performance of the system but also diverts the stress concentration at the beam-to-column connection zone to the beam. The results enable cost-effective retrofitting of existing buildings through stiffener design optimization, demand reduction in columns, and material consumption reduction. The proposed method can be used where architectural limitation exist such as in cases where it is necessary to route utilities or pipes through the shear wall.