Keywords: steel plate shear walls, perforated plates, bracing devices, tension-field, reinforced concrete buildings, retrofitting, finite element, modelling, parametric analysis..

In the field of the seismic protection of buildings, the use of steel plate shear walls (SPSWs) may be particularly appropriate for the intervention of seismic retrofitting of existing reinforced concrete (RC) buildings designed for gravity loads only. Some past research has shown that, when traditional full SPSWs are used as bracing devices for framed buildings, they may induce excessive design forces to the surrounding frame members. Therefore, low yield steel could be a valuable option to overcome this applicability limit. Nevertheless, the scarce availability in the market of these steels suggests the employment of aluminium alloys and perforated steel plates, which have the benefit of incurring behaviour in the plastic range for low stress levels. In this paper, in order to conduct a parametric analysis concerning the use of full and perforated SPSWs for seismic upgrading of existing RC framed structures, first some experimental tests have been numerically calibrated using the SeismoStruct software. Subsequently, the proposed finite element model has been used to design the retrofitting systems with either full or perforated SPSWs of an existing RC residential five-storey building. Finally, the differences in the use of these solutions, in terms of both structural and economic viewpoints, have been demonstrated.

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