EFFECT OF LOCATION AND NUMBER OF OPENINGS ON PERFORMANCE OF COMPOSITE SHEAR WALL

Application of composite shear wall as a seismic resistant structural system has increased recently to improve the steel shear wall behavior and ultimate capacity by means of controlling the out-of-plane buckling shape of the steel plate. One of the most important fields in shear wall performance study is the effects of providing an opening on wall surface. These openings may be needed for some reasons including architectural and installation requirements.The aim of this research is to investigate the effects of the location and number of openings on composite shear wall behavior. Firstly, a composite shear wall, which was tested at Berkeley University, was simulated with finite-element software Abaqus in order to verify numerical modeling. Appropriate conformity between the experimental and numerical results was observed.Then, the effects of the existence of square opening have been studied. Primarily, the location effects were investigated. For this purpose, the model with a central opening defined as the main model. Then, two other models with the same opening area were simulated to compare with the main model: one with

opening near the column and the other with that near the beam. As a general result, by moving the opening location from the center of the wall, the wall stiffness decreases and opening near the beam has the least stiffness. For evaluating the effects of number of openings on composite shear wall behavior, a model with one opening was compared with two models with two openings. It should be noted that the opening area in these three models is the same; one with two vertical openings and the other one with two horizontal openings. Consequently, the model with two horizontal openings made more reduction in strength and stiffness of the wall. Finally, the changes in the stiffness of a composite shear wall without opening were investigated and observed that changes in stiffness are due to steel plate buckling and wall elements yielding. For each model, force-displacement curve, strength, stiffness, the produced stresses, energy absorption and failure mode of the models are presented.