Parametric study on the partially interconnected steel plate shear walls with stiffeners

Steel plate shear walls are a popular and effective lateral load-resisting system used in high-rise buildings. However, limited interconnection between the infill plate and boundary elements is recommended to avoid direct demands on the boundary elements and brittle modes of behavior. But previous studies have shown that the absence of interconnection between infill plates and columns in steel plate shear walls with beam-connected systems can reduce the system's performance significantly. This study proposes procedures to improve the performance of steel plate shear walls with limited infill plate interconnections. Sixty-two parametric computational models were investigated with and without boundary infill plate stiffeners and different infill plate widths to find efficient procedures for eliminating the lack of interconnections. Results show that utilizing boundary stiffeners can increase ultimate strength, energy dissipation, and stiffness by 15%, 20%, and 24% on average. The width of the infill plate and boundary stiffeners are identified as key factors in the system's performance. Reducing the infill plate width without using stiffeners exacerbates the performance of the lateral resisting system, resulting in a reduction of ultimate strength, energy absorption, and stiffness up to 17%, 24%, and 56%, respectively. Analytical equations are proposed and verified to predict the behavior of steel plate shear walls with partial infill plate interconnections with or without boundary stiffeners. Overall, the study provides procedures and recommendations to improve the performance of steel plate shear walls with limited infill plate interconnections.