Experimental and numerical investigation of assembled multi-grid corrugated steel plate shear walls

• A new multi-grid corrugated steel plate shear wall is proposed. • Three half-scale multi-grid CoSPSWs were statically tested. • The effects of the corrugated profile and layouts and connecting stiffeners were investigated. • The out-of-plane stability and energy dissipation capacity are verified. The aim of this study is to develop an assembled multi-grid corrugated steel plate shear wall (CoSPSW), which can significantly increase the out-of-plane pre-buckling stiffness and be suitable for factory standardization. The proposed shear wall comprises several corrugated steel plates which are embedded in small grids enclosed by the longitudinal- and transverse-connecting stiffeners, frame beams and columns. To verify the seismic behaviour of the multi-grid CoSPSW, three 1:3 scale-specimen quasi-static cyclic tests were performed and demonstrated that the multi-grid CoSPSW can sustain a better energy dissipation capacity. Numerical analysis was conducted to investigate the seismic behaviour and the parameter optimization of the proposed shear wall. Based on the validated finite element model, parametric studies included the effects of the corrugated profile, corrugated steel plate layouts (vertical, transverse, and 45° oblique corrugated), and connecting stiffener parameters, which revealed the trapezoidal corrugated steel plate and the horizontal and vertical layouts in the small grids showed a higher buckling capacity and initial lateral stiffness. Both of the experimental results and the numerical analysis showed that the energy dissipation capacity and out-of-plane stiffness of the multi-grid CoSPSW was further improved compared to the ordinary CoSPSW by setting the longitudinal- and transverse-connecting stiffeners.