Experimental and numerical investigation of low-yield-strength (LYS) steel plate shear walls under cyclic loading

Steel plate shear walls (SPSWs) are lateral load resisting systems with a significant energy dissipation potential under cyclic loading. This research performed experimental and numerical investigation of the cyclic behavior of low-yield-strength (LYS) SPSW. Two specimens with 1:3 scale three-story single-bay SPSW with unstiffened infill plates were tested using cyclic loading. The steel plate shear walls had two types of moment-resistant and pinned beam-to-column connections. Also, low-yield-strength (LYS) and high-yield-strength (HYS) steel were used for the infill plates and boundary frames, respectively. The results indicated that the test specimens had good stiffness, high ductility, significant energy dissipation, and stable cyclic behavior. Also, the results revealed that the type of beam-to-column connection affects ductility, strength, and energy dissipation and has a negligible effect on the initial stiffness. In addition, the nonlinear finite element (FE) models were developed to predict the hysteresis behavior of SPSWs. In the FE models, the nonlinear behavior of geometric and materials, large deformations, and initial geometric imperfections were considered. The nonlinear FE models of SPSWs were verified against experimental results. The hysteresis curves, failure modes, and base shear capacity FE models were compared with the experimental results. The numerical investigation showed that the cyclic behavior of the SPSW could be simulated using a simplified FE model. It is demonstrated that rigid and pinned beam-column connection can influence the strength performance and total energy dissipation of an SPSW system and material properties of the infill plate components, especially LYS steel, can further advance the impact of such connection.