Seismic behavior of a novel slotted steel plate shear wall under monotonic, cyclic, and time history analysis

Steel plate shear walls (SPSWs) are lateral load-resistant systems used as energy dissipation members in new or existing structures due to their stable hysteretic behavior. However, structures equipped with conventional SPSWs may have a higher initial stiffness, which causes them to be subjected to too much force during moderate earthquakes. In the present study, a novel slotted SPSW is developed to minimize the lateral forces of traditional SPSWs. The slotted SPSW consists of horizontal boundary elements (HBEs), vertical boundary elements (VBEs), and two layers of incline-slotted infill plates (ISIPs) connected by high-strength steel bolts. The proposed system's seismic behavior and damaged mode were compared with those of conventional SPSW using monotonic and cyclic analysis. The research results show that the slotted SPSW exhibits stable hysteretic behavior with a sig-nificant energy dissipation capacity. Furthermore, the slotted SPSW was applied to a three-story frame structure. Nonlinear time history analysis was conducted under far-field and near-field ground motion records to determine how a slotted SPSW system affects structure response. According to numerical results, the base force of the structure equipped with a slotted SPSW system was minimized to 37.0% and 49.6% under near-field and far-field earthquakes, respectively.