Considerations on the Pushover Analysis of Multi-Story Steel Plate Shear Wall Structures

Pushover analysis is frequently utilized to predict nonlinear behavior of structural systems. One important factor, which considerably influences the results of pushover analysis, is the pattern of distribution of lateral loads along the height of structures. In this paper, five 4- to 13-story SPSW frames are designed according to the AISC-341 code. The frames are then analyzed under two lateral loading patterns recommended by FEMA-356. The first load distribution pattern is proportional to the shape of the fundamental mode, called the triangular loading pattern. The second pattern is a uniform distribution in proportion to the total mass of each story level. Results show that the uniform loading pattern provides higher lateral stiness and ultimate load carrying capacity of SPSW frames in comparison to those obtained from the triangular loading pattern. The discrepancy between the results of the two loading patterns increases with the number of story levels.