Fundamental period prediction of steel plate shear wall structures

The Steel Plate Shear Wall (SPSW) is a structural system used today in design for the primary Lateral Force Resisting System (LFRS) of a building. In the initial design stage the fundamental period of the structure is used to calculate the seismic forces using the Equivalent Lateral Force Procedure (ELFP). The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) allows for the approximation of the fundamental period to be performed using a general formula using two coefficients whose values are dependent on the type of LFRS. The SPSW uses a general value for the fundamental period coefficients and it has been shown that the current procedure for approximating the fundamental period of an SPSW produces overly conservative estimations. This study evaluates the fundamental period of a large population of SPSW prototypes. A formula for better approximation of the fundamental period coefficients is derived and then verified on code-designed SPSW prototypes.