Reducing the Flexural Stiffness Requirement for Boundary Elements in Steel Plate Shear Walls Using the Topology Optimization Method

In this research, the topology optimization method was used to decrease the significant amount of induced distributed loads on surrounding boundary elements of unstiffened steel plate shear walls, which are produced due to the development of tension field action. Therefore, after validating the finite element modeling and optimization methods of steel plate shear walls in ABAQUS, the infill panel’s internal shear forces within the specified strip zones around it were considered as the objective function while the infill panel’s volume and its geometric symmetry were the constraints of the optimization problem. By evaluation of single and combined objective functions for the shear forces, the obtained optimized configurations were superimposed in AutoCAD and regarding the results of 54 considered models, a practical optimized configuration was proposed. Then, a detailed parametric study was performed to find the most optimum geometrical dimensions of the proposed practical configuration considering the amount of stiffness, energy dissipation capacity, out-of-plane deformation and shear forces of the boundary elements. Finally, the required flexural stiffness of the boundary elements of the selected optimized model was examined and it was concluded that the coefficient of the equation, which is proposed by AISC341 provisions for the stiffness of boundary elements, was reduced by 22.58%.