ABSTRACT
Steel plate shear wall (SPSW) can effectively resist horizontal earthquake forces by allowing the development of diagonal tension field action after the infill plates buckle in shear, and then dissipate energy through the cyclic yielding of the infill in tension. In the recent years, many researchers studied on the capacity design methods for the boundary beams or columns adjacent to the infill panels. Vian & Bruneau (2005) studied the design of the boundary beam. Park et al. (2007) conducted a series of tests to investigate the behavior of the boundary column. Berman & Bruneau (2008) conducted extensive numerical studies and developed the design method for the boundary column. In this research (Tsai & Li 2008a, b), capacity design method for the first story boundary column is proposed and verified experimentally. On the other hand, the current US seismic steel building code (AISC 2005) prescribes that the aspect ratio of the panel be limited between 0.8 and 2.5. The tests conducted on the narrow SPSWs were not available even though it could be favorable for architectural reasons. Therefore, the cyclic performance of the fullscale narrow steel plate shear walls is investigated in this research.
