Bilinear Load–Displacement Curve of Semi-supported Steel Shear Walls

Elastic stiffness and ultimate shear capacity are two main parameters of a structural system to obtain its ideal bilinear load–displacement. In the previous studies, the ultimate shear capacity of semi-supported steel shear walls (SSSW) which are a new lateral resisting system, has been determined. In this system, wall plates do not have any direct connection to the main columns of structure and they are connected to secondary columns which do not carry the gravity loads. The used thin plate in the SSSW elastically buckles at low levels of lateral loads and the wall plate stays on a fairly vast region with elastic post-buckling behavior (elastic stiffness). In this study, the Von-Karman plate equations are solved by the Galerkin method to find displacement field of the wall plate in the elastic post-buckling region as well as the maximum shear load after which the plasticity expand in the wall plate. Thus, the elastic stiffness of system is calculated. As the analytical procedure is complicated, the method is applied on 144 examples with different material and geometrical properties. Using linear regression technique, a concise formula is proposed to predict the elastic stiffness of system. The dimensions of wall plate are only the effective parameters in the suggested formula and the elastic stiffness is independent of the overturning moment, section of secondary columns and yield stress of material. Using the ultimate shear capacity and elastic stiffness, an ideal bilinear curve is obtained for the lateral load versus the horizontal displacement. The shear capacity at the end of elastic post-buckling region and out of plane displacement are acceptably validated with those of FE analysis for some examples.