Experimental Investigation of Self-Centering Steel Plate Shear Walls

A self-centering steel plate shear wall (SC-SPSW) system has been developed to achieve enhanced performance objectives following earthquakes, including recentering. The SC-SPSW consists of thin steel infill web panels as the primary lateral load resistance and energy dissipation of the system providing a high initial stiffness, where the moment resisting connections of conventional SPSW construction are replaced with post-tensioned (PT) beam-to-column connections that allow the beam to rock about its flanges to provide system recentering. The system and component behavior of SC-SPSWs have been investigated experimentally through a series of quasi-static and shake table tests. Quasi-static subassembly tests at the University of Washington have been conducted to study the effects of various design parameters on overall cyclic response and component demands. The University at Buffalo experiments focus on third-scale 3-story SC-SPSWs subjected to quasi-static and shake table testing to investigate system behavior. These experiments consider three different PT rocking connection details: 1) connections that rock about the beam flanges, 2) connections that rock about the beam centerline, and 3) an innovative NewZ-BREAKSS connection that rocks about the top beam flange only. The latter two PT connections have been proposed as methods to essentially eliminate floor system damage due to frame expansion that occurs with typical PT connections where the beams rock about their flanges.