Beam Design Force Demands in Steel Plate Shear Walls with Simple Boundary Frame Connections

Abstract

Where simple beam-to-column connections are used in the boundary frame of a steel plate shear wall and the tension fields in the infill plates are assumed to be uniform and at the yield stress for capacity design, the moment and shear force distributions in each beam are statically determinate, while the axial force distribution is highly indeterminate and depends on several contributing factors. In this paper, in addition to quantifying appropriate moment and shear force distributions for use in design, a simple but powerful analysis method is presented for evaluating the beam’s axial force demand. The method is based on the principle of capacity design and nonlinear finite element simulations of wall systems with different numbers of stories, infill plate aspect ratios and thicknesses, and lateral load distributions. The axial force demands are highly dependent on the mechanism of load transfer to the system from the floor and roof diaphragms and the shear force distribution in the compression column. The various components of shear force demand on the beams of the system are also studied, and it is shown that the net shear forces on an intermediate beam depend on the pattern of yield progression in the infill plates above and below. A method for determining appropriate design moment and shear values is proposed for the case where the same infill plate thickness is used above and below an intermediate beam. The methods presented for moment, shear, and axial force determination are verified against experimental results for a two-story steel plate shear wall with simple bolted double-angle beam-to-column connections.