Investigating the seismic behaviour of high-performance steel plate shear walls

Steel plate shear wall (SPSWs) have good ductility, high strength and stiffness, and considerable energy absorption capability. These advantages have been confirmed in experimental and numerical studies. However, despite these advantages, the need for huge columns surrounding the infill plates is the main limitation of SPSWs. Although the high-performance steel plate shear wall (HPSPSW) has solved this shortcoming, there are still some unknowns about this high-performance system. The HPSPSW system is expected to be more economical than other resisting systems due to ease of fabrication, the elimination of complete joint penetration field welds, the elimination of stress transfer from infill plates to main columns, the higher modification factor and no need for huge main columns. A comparison of analysis results of HPSPSW and SPSW systems revealed that the HPSPSW has desirable stiffness, ductility and energy absorption when its length to height ratio is greater than 1.5. In addition, the HPSPSW system had an ultimate lateral strength only 2–5% lower than that of the SPSW. Modification factors were calculated and average values of 6.67 and 8.64 were obtained for the SPSW and HPSPSW systems, respectively. Therefore, a modification factor of 8.5 is suggested for the HPSPSW.