A numerical parametric study on the plate inclination angle of steel plate shear walls

Abstract

In this study, tension field inclination angle (α), which forms on thin steel plate of steel plate shear walls, is investigated. For this purpose, nonlinear finite element models of selected experimental steel plate shear wall specimens in literature were created. Afterwards, the results of the nonlinear analyses of finite element models and the results of experimental investigations were compared and a good agreement was attained. After creating and validating the models, the correlation of the inclination angle with different plate parameters such as plate thickness, boundary elements stiffness, width to height ratio of walls were studied. Steel plate shear walls with different aspect ratios were modelled and various boundary element cross sectional areas and plate thicknesses were used. It was observed that inclination angle is not very sensitive to plate thickness and boundary element cross sectional areas, but aspect ratios have an apparent effect on the tension field inclination angle. The analysis results showed that the inclination angle takes almost a constant value above 0.01 drift ratio. Moreover, it is observed that the tension field inclination angle develops mostly between 35°-45°.