Experimental Study on Steel Shear Wall with Slits

Abstract

A new type of earthquake-resisting element, consisting of a steel plate shear wall with vertical slits, is introduced. In this system, the steel plate segments between the slits behave as a series of flexural links, which provide a fairly ductile response without the need for heavy stiffening of the wall. Test results are presented for 42 wall plate specimens of roughly one-third of full scale, which were subjected to static monotonic and cyclic lateral loading. These tests provide data on general behavior of the walls, which provides the basis for models to calculate the wall strength and stiffness and design the out-of-plane stiffening. When properly detailed and fabricated to avoid premature failure due to tearing or out-of-plane buckling, the wall panels respond in a ductile manner, with a concentration of inelastic action at the top and bottom of the flexural links. The test data indicate that limiting the width-to-thickness ratio to less than 20 in the flexural links will ensure that the walls can sustain roughly 3% drift without substantial hysteretic degradation.