This paper describes the recent experimental researches on the steel plate shear wall (SPSW) at National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering (NCREE). In addition, the design implications learned from the test results are presented. In 2007, the cyclic tests of four full-scale two-story narrow SPSWs confirm that the yielding of the first story column can be confined in the bottom of the column when the proposed capacity design principle is followed. Test results also suggest that, when the column hinging is allowed at a location slightly above the column base, the column size can be cost-effectively reduced without comprising the seismic performance of the SPSW. In 2009, the cyclic test of a reduced scaled coupled SPSW (C-SPSW) substructure was conducted at NCREE. The specimen was the 2/5-scaled substructure of the lowest two-and-half-story of a 6-story C-SPSW prototype building. The C-SPSW specimen consisted of two SPSWs connected together by the coupling beams. In addition to a constant vertical force representing the gravity load effects, cyclic increasing displacements and the associated overturning moments were applied at the boundary of the specimen using the Multi-Axial Testing System (MATS) in NCREE. Test results suggest that the proposed design method, which aims to limit the hinging of the bottom column within the bottom quarter column height, could be a choice of design in the practice. The test results confirm that the effect of the coupling beams in reducing the axial forces in the inner boundary columns. The relationship between the coupling beam rotation and the story drift is explored based on the test data. Test results suggest that the cyclic responses of the C-SPSW specimen can be satisfactorily predicted using the general purposes frame response software incorporating the strip model.
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