Nonlinear macroelement for steel shear walls under seismic loading
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Chen, Xi
Macorini, Lorenzo
Izzuddin, Bassam A
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
This paper proposes an efficient macroscale representation for unstiffened thin steel shear walls, enabling accurate and efficient predictions under earthquake loading. The 8-noded macroelement incorporates six nonlinear springs with asymmetric constitutive relationships to represent the cyclic response of steel panels. The macroelement formulation is introduced first, followed by the constitutive model for the nonlinear springs, which allows for strain-hardening in tension, strength degradation in compression, residual strength at the strain reversal point, and stiffness reduction. The material parameters for the constitutive model are calibrated by multi-objective optimisation with Genetic Algorithms based on the numerical results provided by accurate nonlinear FE models with shell elements. Linear regression is utilised to establish the material parameters for infill plates with different geometric properties. The residual of dissipated energy for the calibrated macroelement models lies between 3 % overestimation and 12 % underestimation compared to detailed shell element models, whereas the computational demand is reduced with wall-clock time reductions of more than 97 %. Finally, the proposed macroelement is verified in numerical examples, where a substandard RC frame enhanced with different types of steel shear walls is analysed under cyclic loading using detailed shell element models and the proposed macroelement for the steel wall components. The excellent comparisons confirm that the proposed macroelement model provides an efficient and accurate description of unstiffened steel wall components, and it can be used for realistic nonlinear dynamic simulations of framed buildings equipped with steel walls under earthquake loading.
Date Issued
2025-05-01
Date Acceptance
2025-02-02
Citation
Journal of Constructional Steel Research, 2025, 228
ISSN
0143-974X
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Constructional Steel Research
Volume
228
Copyright Statement
© 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
License URL
Identifier
10.1016/j.jcsr.2025.109411
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
109411
Date Publish Online
2025-02-20