This National Science Foundation supported research seeks to develop a resilient steel shear wall system while also filling critical knowledge gaps regarding steel plate shear wall behavior that are currently impeding widespread implementation of these robust and ductile systems. The project utilizes NEES equipment sites at the University at Buffalo and University of Minnesota as well as experimental facilities at the National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research in Taiwan and at the University of Washington. The resilient steel plate shear wall system (R-SPSW) will leverage the advantages inherent in steel plate shear walls (SPSWs) and self-centering technologies to achieve seismic performance objectives including post-event functionality and easy post-event repair. To break down barriers to more widespread SPSW implementation, the project will investigate the vertical distribution of yielding in the systems under dynamic ground shaking and the performance of coupled SPSWs and will develop new analytical models that are capable of capturing nonlinear web plate response.

The project objectives are to:

• Develop a smart and resilient SPSW system that leverages the benefits of self-centering and conventional SPSW systems and has the ability to detect web plate damage.

• Provide next-generation modeling techniques for web plates of all types of SPSW.

• Improve the understanding of SPSW system behavior to eliminate knowledge gaps that are barriers to implementation.

• Produce capacity and performance based design tools and recommendations for resilient and conventional SPSW systems and disseminate them to the engineering community.

• Fully integrate undergraduates from Seattle University and high-school students from the Seattle MESA program into the research activities.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Grant Number: CMMI-0830294. However, Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recomendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).

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2009 NEES Annual Meeting Poster

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