Page 103 - JCAU-7-3

Journal of Chinese

Architecture and Urbanism

ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Numerical investigation of the seismic

performance of steel shear plate walls reinforced
with cross-shaped and circular stiffeners

Morteza Naghipour * , Abbasali Jahani , and Seyed Mohammad Reza Hasani 1
1
2
1 Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Babol Noshirvani University of
Technology, Babol, Mazandaran, Iran
2 Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Mohaghegh Ardebili University,
Ardebil, Ardebil, Iran

Abstract

Steel plate shear walls are among the most promising lateral load-resisting
systems. However, a major drawback of this system is that the thin steel plate
infill is susceptible to buckling under its own weight or when exposed to seismic
loads. To solve this problem, stiffeners are effectively employed. In this study, steel
plate shear wall models incorporating perpendicular and horizontal cross-shaped
*Corresponding author: and circular configurations were investigated. Finite element models of frame
Morteza Naghipour
(m-naghi@nit.ac.ir) structures, comprising steel plate infill along with adjacent beams and columns,
were developed in ANSYS and validated against experimental data from the
Citation: Naghipour, M.,
Jahani, A., & Hasani, S. M. R. scholarly literature. The numerical model demonstrated excellent agreement with
(2025). Numerical investigation of published experimental results. After confirming model accuracy and material
the seismic performance of steel suitability, a series of 3-span, 5-story frame models, was generated to evaluate the
shear plate walls reinforced with
cross-shaped and circular stiffeners. effects of stiffener quantity (0, 2, 3, and 4) and configuration. To this end, pushover
Journal of Chinese Architecture and analyses were performed, and the resulting capacity curves were plotted. These
Urbanism, 7(3): 5781. curves were subsequently idealized following Federal Emergency Management
https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.5781
Agency recommendations, and seismic parameters – including ductility factor,
Received: November 6, 2024 response modification factor, stiffness, and shear capacity – were thoroughly
1st revised: February 3, 2025 examined. In addition, cyclic loading analyses were performed by applying
incremental displacements at the roof level, and the corresponding energy
2nd revised: February 8, 2025
dissipation capacities were determined. The results indicate that steel plate shear
Accepted: February 25, 2025 walls with circular reinforcements exhibit a ductility factor of 29.41, whereas
Published online: March 19, 2025 those with cross-shaped stiffeners have a ductility factor of 17.10, indicating
the superior ductility performance of circular stiffeners. However, cross-shaped
Copyright: © 2025 Author(s).
This is an open-access article stiffeners outperform circular stiffeners in terms of shear capacity, reaching 5,815
distributed under the terms of the kN compared to 4,020 kN. In addition, the highest stiffness value (921.5 kN/mm)
Creative Commons Attribution- was observed in the hybrid model incorporating both cross and circular stiffeners.
Non-Commercial 4.0 International
(CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits all Optimization analysis revealed that four perpendicular circular stiffeners yield
non-commercial use, distribution, the maximum energy dissipation capacity, while three circular stiffeners optimize
and reproduction in any medium, ductility, response modification factor, and shear strength.
provided the original work is
properly cited.
Publisher’s Note: AccScience Keywords: Steel plate shear wall; Circular stiffener; Cross-shaped stiffener; Ductility factor;
Publishing remains neutral with Finite element method
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional
affiliations.

Volume 7 Issue 3 (2025) 1 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.5781