Corner Crack Effect on the Seismic Behavior of Steel Plate Shear Wall System

Although, experimental studies have reported fracture at the corner of Steel Plate Shear Walls (SPSW), no study has been performed to investigate the crack effect, yet. Therefore, in this paper, the effect of crack at the corner of SPSWs on the seismic behavior of the system was investigated. Two probable cracks, that have been studies at the corner of SPSWs utilizing extended Finite Element method based on cohesive crack approach, are initial horizontal crack and initial vertical crack. Numerical results indicated that small initial crack does not have considerable effect on the seismic behavior of SPSW. In addition, the horizontal crack is more effective than vertical crack. Since SPSWs with long initial horizontal crack are ruptured suddenly, so they could not be utilized as a lateral resisting in seismic zone. Nevertheless, no ruptures occur in SPSWs with vertical cracks. Therefore, SPSWs with horizontal crack must be repaired, but no repairing is needed in SPSWs with initial vertical cracks.