Improving the behavior of semi‐supported steel plate shear walls using diagonal stiffeners

Although Steel Plate Shear Walls (SPSWs) have revealed worthy performance in past studies, the need for huge columns surrounding the infill plate is accounted as a considerable shortcoming. This problem is created due to transferring the infill plate stress to the columns by post‐bucking. Despite using the semi‐supported SPSW, the problem is solved, however, the stiffness and ultimate strength of the SPSW are reduced. This reduction is due to the formation of incomplete tension field action. Therefore, in this paper, stiffening the semi‐supported SPSW using diagonal stiffeners is proposed and investigated numerically and parametrically. To do so, the effect of the stiffener properties, the thickness of the stiffener (ts), the width of the stiffener (hs), and the hs/ts ratio on the behavior of the system were evaluated. These stiffeners not only improve the behavior of the infill plate but also contribute to load bearing. Results indicated that by using the stiffeners, the ultimate strength, elastic stiffness, and energy dissipation capacity of the semi‐supported SPSW are improved, and with a lower hs/ts ratio, a better performance of the system is obtained.