Low-damage novel steel plate shear walls for improved seismic performance

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Earthquake risks in the eastern and western Canadian cities are very well known. The seismic risk assessment study conducted by the Insurance Bureau of Canada in 2013 highlighted that the estimated economic losses from earthquakes could be as high as $75 and $61 billion in Western and Eastern regions, respectively. Thus, there is a need for the development of new structural systems that possess enhanced ductility and strength and at the same time remain essentially damage-free after an earthquake. Steel Plate Shear Wall (SPSW) is an effective lateral load resisting system for buildings against earthquakes since it has large ductility and high energy absorption capacity. However, under the design level earthquake, conventional SPSWs are expected to experience significant damage through buckling and yielding in infill plates and partial yielding in the boundary members leading to large residual lateral drift following an earthquake. This could render such a damaged structure unusable. Costly repairs or demolition and reconstruction will be required before the structure can be made usable. Also, Canada has a large inventory of seismically deficient old buildings that require immediate seismic retrofitting. Thus, the long-term objective of this research program is to develop low-damage steel plate shear wall systems that show improved ductility, strength, energy dissipation capacity, and reduced permanent deformations during extreme events and also develop design guidelines and analysis tools for these new structural systems to be used by the engineering community. In the short term, the applicant will develop two novel low-damage SPSW systems: i) SPSW system with a rigid base where infill plate is connected only to the beams and ii) SPSW system with rocking base and easily replaceable energy dissipating fuses where infill plate is connected to both beams and columns or only to the beams, and develop design procedure by performing extensive experimental tests and numerical simulations on the novel low-damage SPSW systems. The proposed low-damage steel plate shear wall systems offer a lot of advantages over conventional SPSWs and other lateral load resisting systems. The low-damage SC-SPSW system has a novel feature that will help the structures regain original positions, limit damage to easily replaceable fuses, and allow structures to remain in service even after an earthquake. The low-damage high-performance SPSW system with beam-only connected infill plate and without the rocking base can easily be implemented to retrofit seismically deficient old steel buildings. Thus, the alternatives presented here can potentially be used for new construction as well as for seismic rehabilitation of existing buildings. The significance of this research is paramount, as it ensures improved safety and security against seismic hazards in Canada. This research will take Canada significantly closer to having a safer and resilient infrastructure.