Strip model for steel plate shear walls with beam-connected web plates

Steel plate shear walls comprise web plates connected to beams and columns, also referred to as vertical and horizontal boundary elements, respectively. When loaded laterally, web plates induce high flexural and axial demands in the columns due to the development of an inclined tension field. An alternative lateral force-resisting system is proposed in which the steel plate shear wall web plates are attached only to the beams to avoid high flexural demands in the columns resulting from the inclined tension. In this study, beam-connected web plate behavior is characterized using validated finite element models, a simplified strip model is proposed to simulate hysteretic web plate behavior, and equations for the inclination angle of the partial tension field and compressive strength of strips are presented. A comparison between the finite element model, the current strip model from the literature, and the new proposed strip model is provided. Results indicate that the proposed model successfully estimates beam and column demands, base shear capacity, and energy dissipation capacity of the beam-connected web plate for a wide range of web plate aspect ratios and height-to-thickness ratios.