A Comparative Study of the Shell Element and Strip Model Methods for Analysis of Steel Plate Shear Wall Structures

Abstract

Shell element and strip model are the two available numerical methods in the analysis of steel plate shear wall (SPSW) structures. The shell element model provides excellent prediction of the behavior of SPSWs. However, when the number of elements increases, especially in high-rise frames, the method becomes time consuming and produces convergence complications. In such cases, the strip model is commonly used as an alternative method. In the literature, the evaluation of the strip model has only been carried out for up to four-story SPSW structures. In the present study, fourteen low- to high-rise SPSW frames having 4, 7, 10 and 13 stories with different bay widths of 2, 3, 6 and 9m are designed and modeled using shell element and strip methods. The pushover analysis results show that the accuracy of strip model is affected by the number of story levels as well as the bay width. The use of beam element in modeling frame members is shown to have considerable effects on the results of the strip model. The panel zones should be modeled as effectively rigid regions in the strip model; and the slenderness ratio of frame members should be considered. It is also found that the distribution of story shear between infill plates and frame members are quite different in the two modeling methods. Furthermore, modifications to improve the accuracy of the strip model are recommended in this paper.