Research and Analysis of the Lateral Performance of the Prefabricated Steel Plate Shear Wall Connection

In order to combine the steel plate shear wall system with new prefabricated steel structure system, a discontinuous cover-plate connection (DCPC) was proposed for a prefabricated steel plate shear wall with a beam-only-connected infill plate.The structure and design method of DCPC was studied. The static loading tests and finite element analyses ware carried out on four 1/3 scale specimens that were designed and manufactured by changing the thickness of the infill plate, the number of the connecting bolts and the friction coefficient of the contact surface. The results show that increasing the number of bolts can effectively improve the slipping load and the initial stiffness of the specimens, but can increase the loss of pre-tightening force on bolts and the residual deformation of the cover plate and the bottom plate. Larger friction coefficient can effectively increase the ultimate lateral capacity force of the specimens, but have little effect on the pre-tightening force of bolts. The loss of pre-tightening forceon bolts increases with the increasing of width-thickness ratio and the effective height-span ratio of the infill plate. The tension fields of the infill plates are fully developed before failure, the displacement ductility coefficients satisfies the seismic design requirements, and the failure of specimens belongs to the ductile failure. DPCP not only has good mechanical properties, but also is easy to be manufactured and assembled, and it can ensure the repairable function of the steel plate shear wall after earthquake.