Experimental and numerical study of concrete frames with steel plate shear walls

Steel plate shear wall systems have appropriate behavior in high seismic zones. They could be combined with concrete or precast concrete structures to compensate susceptibility of these structures to strong earthquakes. This article presents an experimental and numerical study on seismic behavior of various types of steel plate shear walls installed in simple and rigid concrete frames. These frames were subjected to quasi-static cycling loading in accordance with ACI T1.1-01. Compared to the bare moment frame, erection of the steel plate in simple concrete frame by bearing bolted connection led to an increase in lateral load capacity, initial stiffness, energy dissipation and equivalent hysteretic damping up to 1.7, 2.2, 3.5 and 3 times, respectively. These ratios for the steel plate shear wall with moment frame, and connected by friction bolted connections were 3, 7.2, 7.7 and 3.2 times. The horizontal and vertical stiffeners in the steel plate shear wall with the openings over the main diameters contributed to 13% and 27% increase in energy dissipation and equivalent damping, respectively, while the load bearing capacity and initial stiffness did not decrease significantly. At the bearing bolted con-nections, crippling and tearing of the steel plate was observed, but no any damage occurred at the friction bolted connections. Whereas, all the steel connecting components embedded in concrete were in the elastic range and also, equations governing the angle of inclination of the tensile field, were valid. Finally, the samples were simulated in Abaqus finite element software, and the pushover curves of experimental load-displacements dia-grams were predicted.