Behaviour of Semi-Rigid Steel Frames With Steel Plate Shear Walls

Abstract

This paper describes an investigation on the seismic behaviour of a new lateral resistance system which combines semi-rigid steel frames (SRSFs) with steel plate shear walls (SPSWs). A laboratory test, including two 1/3-scale one-bay, two-storey SRSFs with SPSWs, was conducted to study the influence of the stiffeners on SPSWs and the stiffness of beam-column connections. The results indicate that the new system inherits the merits both of SRSFs and SPSWs. It exhibits excellent seismic performance in terms of load carrying capacity, ductility, stiffness and energy dissipation. The stiffeners on SPSWs not only effectively reduce the forces taken by beams and columns but also improve the overall cyclic performance of structural systems. Moreover, they increase the initial stiffness and buckling load capacity of SPSWs especially. Further, the finite element analysis method was adopted for parametric study of the influence of connection stiffness and stiffener rigidity on the behaviour of SRSF-SPSW. It demonstrates that the SPSW in the proposed structural system undertakes 70%-80% of overall lateral load. The influence of connection stiffness on the load carrying capacity depends on the stiffness of columns and thickness of infill plates. This influence is enlarged with increasing stiffness of columns and reducing thickness of infill plates. The load carrying capacity of a structural system is increased by 42.2% when connections are changed from pin to rigid. Generally, this research provides a basis for engineering application and theoretical analysis of the SRSF-SPSW structural system.

Experimental Study of Composite Steel Plate Shear Wall with Flush End-Plate Connection

“…Consequently, the beam-column connection joints rotate evidently, the rotational stiffness of connection joints degrades steadily and finally the end plates of the intermediate beam enter the plastic stage. Besides, the form of beam-column connection also affect the performance of the SPSW structure, and the yielding load of the SPSW with rigid beam-column connections is 16.3% higher than that with hinged beam-column connections (Yu and Hao 2016), which shows that the rotation and stiffness degradation of the beam-column connection reduce of the structural bearing capacity. However, due to the presence of precast RC cover panels in the Con-BRP, the rotation and stiffness degradation of flush end-plate beam-column connection joints are not significant.…”

“…For unstiffened and stiffened SPSWs, numerous studies have been carried out considering the influence of beam-column connection characteristics (Yu and Hao 2016;Guo et al 2017). Based on the widely adopted principle of large ductility without brittle fracture, the flush end-plate connection holding of the merit of simple construction has been employed in many researches on SPSW with semirigid connected frame.…”

“…Based on the widely adopted principle of large ductility without brittle fracture, the flush end-plate connection holding of the merit of simple construction has been employed in many researches on SPSW with semirigid connected frame. For instance, Yu and Hao (2016) and Guo et al (2017) analysed the influence of the stiffness of beam-column connections and the restraining effect of cross stiffeners on the performance of SPSW, respectively. It was shown that the cross stiffeners divided the thin steel plate into small cell plates, while reducing the height-to-thickness ratio of steel plates, restraining the buckling of infill steel plate and increasing the bearing capacity and stiffness of the overall structure.…”

An Overview of the Connection Classification Index

“…The availability of a large database on the actual M-θ characteristics of various connections makes it possible to conduct extensive verification of the rigidity and classification indices proposed by AISC and Eurocode 3 "EC3". To this end, over the past few decades, a great deal of effort has been expended within the research arm of the structural engineering profession to address the topic of classification of connections and their impact on the structural response [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. These analyses mainly involve the calculation of stiffness and strength from the experimental M-θ curve, which is validated using Finite Element analyses.…”

Effects of Aspect Ratio and Plate Thickness on the Behavior of Unstiffened Steel-Plate Shear Walls with Pinned and Rigid Connections

“…Most of experimental studies mentioned above have been focused on performance of SPSW test specimens with the moment resisting (rigid) connections between the boundary elements. There are also some studies examined seismic behaviors of steel frames with semi-rigid beam-column connections [24][25][26][27]. In SPSW systems, boundary elements with rigid beam-column connections require the use of larger structural sections to be capable of resisting the induced flexural demand.…”