Seismic Response of Self-Centering Steel Plate Shear Walls

Earthquake-induced damage is inevitable in conventional lateral load-resisting systems, such as moment-resisting frames and shear walls. As an alternative solution, buildings can be designed to limit the damage to be concentrated on those members that can easily be replaced to ensure rapid recovery after seismic events. One of those systems that can provide this possibility is the self-centering (SC) system. Self-centering steel plate shear walls (SC-SPSWs) consist of thin steel infill web plates, boundary elements, and horizontal post-tensioned (PT) cables. PT cables can provide self-centering capability in the beam–column connection and allow beams to rock about their flanges and return the structure to its original position after seismic events. In this paper, an analytical study is performed to assess the seismic response of the two-story SC-SPSW. Non-linear seismic analyses of a two-story SC-SPSW and a two-story conventional SPSW are conducted for a set of near-field and far-field ground motions. Seismic demand parameters (maximum inter-story drift and residual drift) are obtained for the two selected SPSW systems; seismic analyses show that the SC-SPSW system experiences lower values of residual drift compared to the conventional SPSW, and an obvious increase is observed in seismic demand parameters as the excitation changed from far-field to near-fault. A parametric study is also conducted in order to identify the effect of infill plate thickness and the post-tension force on seismic demand parameters. Results indicate that increasing the web plate thickness contributes to a decrease in the peak inter-story drift, and increasing the initial PT force reduces the residual inter-story drift.