Large-Scale Cyclic Testing and Development of Ring Shaped - Steel Plate Shear Walls for Improved Seismic Performance of Buildings

Abstract

A novel shear wall system for building structures has been developed that improves upon the performance of conventional steel plate shear walls by mitigating buckling. The new structural system, called the Ring Shaped - Steel Plate Shear Wall, was investigated and developed through experimental and computational methods. First, the plastic mechanism of the system was numerically derived and then analytically validated with finite element analyses. Next, five large-scale, quasi-static, cyclic experimental tests were conducted in the Thomas M. Murray Structures Laboratory at Virginia Tech. The large-scale experiments validated the system performance and provided data on the boundary frame forces, infill panel shear deformation modes, buckling mode shapes, and buckling magnitudes.

Multiple computational modeling techniques were employed to reproduce different facets of the system behavior. First, detailed finite element models were constructed to accurately reproduce the cyclic performance, yielding pattern, and buckling mode shapes. The refined finite element models were utilized to further study the boundary element forces and ultra-low cycle fatigue behavior of the system. Second, reduced-order computational models were constructed that can accurately reproduce the hysteretic performance of the web plates. The reduced-order models were then utilized to study the nonlinear response history behavior of four prototype building structures using Ring Shaped - Steel Plate Shear Walls and conventional steel plate shear walls. The nonlinear response history analyses investigated the application of the system to a short period and a long period building configuration. In total 176 nonlinear response history analyses were conducted and statistically analyzed.

Lastly, a practical design methodology for the Ring Shaped - Steel Plate Shear Wall web plates was presented. The experimental tests and computational simulations reported in this dissertation demonstrate that Ring Shaped - Steel Plate Shear Walls are capable of improving seismic performance of buildings by drastically reducing buckling and improving cyclic energy dissipation.