Study of Stiffened Central Panel Between Two Openings in Steel Plate Shear Walls with Stiffeners

The performance of the central panel in dual-opening steel shear walls has been studied using the simple beam model, which its behavior depends on the "height to width" ratio.Central panel has been made of bilateral stiffeners on both sides of the web plate. Now, the central panel together with extreme stiffeners is comparable to a steel shear wall by itself. It is necessary for the cross-sectional area of the stiffeners to meet the minimum requirements to force the ideal shear yielding of the central panel rather than the flexural yielding of side stiffeners.Obviously, the "height to width" ratio of the central panel has been studied as a major factor in predicting its behavior. ABAQUS is the analytical tool used in the paper. It has also been concluded that the proper ratio selected for the central panel would result it to behave in a dominant shear mode.