An Efficient Shape for Steel Slit Shear Walls

Slit steel plate shear wall is a new type of passive damper device. In a slitwall, the steel plate between the slits behaves as a series of flexural linkswhich act fairly independently of each other and undergo large flexuraldeformations relative to their shear deformation. This system may be usedfor building design for both new constructions and seismic upgrade ofexisting structures. Due to the connection of walls to frame beam only,i.e.(no need to connect it to side column), it is not necessary to implementthese walls in the whole span. This feature may offer important advantagesfrom architectural point of view. This paper presents a novel approach todesign of the slits. Finite element modeling has been used for this study.Special attention is paid to the geometric design of links in order togenerate uniform stress distribution along their length and to prevent strainlocalization and premature failure. Special buckling constraints have beenused, in order to restrict out-of-plane buckling of links. Proposed geometryfor the slits of wall has also been compared with previously commonshape. Based on the results, the new shape of slits increases ductility andenergy dissipation of slit walls; it also reduces the equivalent plastic strainin critical parts. Therefore the proposed shape may produce an improvedbehavior for the slit wall.

Keywords:

Passive damper device , Steel slit shear wall , Energy dissipation , Equivalent plastic strain