Seismic behavior of steel plate shear walls with centrally placed circular perforations

The behavior of unstiffened thin steel plate shear walls with circular perforations placed at the center of the infill plates is examined. A shear strength equation is developed for perforated steel plate shear wall with circular perforation at the center. A series of single storey perforated steel plate shear walls with different aspect ratios and different perforation diameters were analyzed to assess the proposed shear strength equation. A comparison between the nonlinear pushover analysis and the proposed equation shows excellent agreement. The proposed shear strength equation is applied for design of boundary columns of one 4-storey and one 6-storey perforated steel plate shear walls. The predicted design forces in the boundary columns for the selected perforated shear walls are compared to the forces obtained from nonlinear seismic analysis. The proposed equation gives very good predictions for the design forces in the boundary columns.