Effect of Welding Residual Stresses on Performance of Steel Plate Shear Wall

The effect of Welding residual stresses that was created in thin infill plate of steel plate shear wall system during constructional processes was studied in this research. Residual stresses in a welded structure is the result of the non-uniform expansion and contraction and plastic deformation of the weld and surrounding base metal due to heating and cooling cycle, during welding process, this issue could affected SPSW`s behavior. In this research ABAQUS finite element software is utilized to simulation of welding process and steel plate shear wall behavior. Sequentially coupled thermo-elastic–plastic finite element computational procedure is developed to calculate temperature field and welding residual stresses in SPSW. The result shows that residual stresses created in infill plates of three story steel plate shear wall with rigid beam-column connection due to welding process makes yielding load, ultimate load, stiffness, ductility and energy absorption, decrease 1.4%, 1.26%, 7.6%, 7.3%, 3.4% respectively in model with residual stresses in comparison with model without residual stresses. Thus, the ignore of residual stresses effect due to welding in prospect of thin steel plate shear walls(SPSWs) behavior is negligible.