Experimental Studies on Corrugated Steel Plate Shear Walls

Corrugated Steel Plate Shear Walls (CoSPSW) are lateral load resisting system in which corrugated steel plates are embedded inside a boundary frame, with the corrugation oriented in the horizontal or vertical direction. This paper presented experimental research on the cyclic behavior of corrugated steel plate shear walls as a new type of steel plate shear wall system. Cyclic quasi-static tests were conducted on three 1/3-scale two-story single-bay CoSPSW specimens with different corrugation orientation and different geometric properties of corrugation, and similar tests were conducted on 1/3-scale single-bay two-story SPSW specimens for comparison. All CoSPSW specimens showed highly ductile behavior and stable cyclic post-buckling performance. The specimens were able to tolerate at least 4% story drifts, and the corrugated steel panel were able to effectively improve the elastic buckling capacity and lateral stiffness of the shear wall system. The connection between the wall panel, including the flat and corrugated panels, and the boundary frame were capable of developing the full strength of the infill panel. Although hysteretic behavior of the unstiffened and corrugated specimens along with their load distribution pattern was different, eventually in all the cases, the failure of the specimen was caused by the fractures of the steel infill panels and the yielding and buckling of the bottom of columns. And the specimens all behaved as a desirable sequences of yielding: the infill panels yielded first and dissipated energy, then the boundary beams yielded and formed plastic hinges to dissipate noticeable energy, the boundary columns yielded and formed the plastic hinges at the bottom at the last. The experimental results and their implication in seismic design will be summarized and discussed.

View content