Nonlinear buckling analysis of steel plate shear walls with trapezoidally-corrugated and perforated infill plates

Based on considerable out-of-plane stability of corrugated plates, such plates can be considered as viable alternatives to unstiffened and stiffened steel plates in structural systems such as steel plate shear walls (SPSWs). This study investigates the effects of variation of corrugation parameters and inclusion of infill plate opening on the structural performance of trapezoidal ly-corrugated SPSWs under monotonic loading through finite element simulation using ANSYS. Buckling stability, stiffness, strength, and ductility performances of numerous SPSW models developed based on web-plate thickness, corrugation angle, and opening size parameters are investigated. Square openings are implemented at the center of the infill plates with areas equal to 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 percent of the web-plate out-of-plane projected area. The accuracy of the finite element modeling is verified through comparison of numerical and experimental results. Findings of this study show that proper design of the boundary frame members and optimal selection of the web-plate thickness as well as corrugation parameters can result in desirable performance of steel shear walls with trapezoidally-corrugated and perforated infill plates, particularly despite the detrimental effects of web-plate opening, as partly shown in this paper.