Steel plate shear walls with beam-connected web plates

Steel plate shear walls (SPSW) are a reliable lateral force-resisting system with high ductility, stable hysteretic response, and high lateral stiffness. The main lateral force-resisting elements of a SPSW are thin steel infill plates (web plates) that are connected to columns and beams on four edges. Due to a mechanism called tension field action, web plates pull in columns and induce significant flexural demands in columns when the system undergoes a lateral sway. Steel plate shear walls with beam-connected web plates (B-SPSW) are an alternative configuration to conventional SPSWs where columns are detached from web plates to eliminate column flexural demands resulting from tension field action. Due to the difference in the boundary conditions of web plates, the behavior of B-SPSWs is different than conventional SPSWs. A three-phase numerical study has been undertaken to investigate the seismic behavior of B-SPSWs.