Effects of the opening on the behavior of composite shear walls

Due to architectural, mechanical and even structural considerations, in some cases there is need to create some openings in the composite steel shear walls. Presence of the openings can considerably affect the wall behavior. Therefore in this study, the effects of the opening on the behavior of composite steel shear walls are investigated. For this purpose, first an experimental specimen without opening is developed and tested. The outcomes of the experimental study are verified by those obtained by Arabzadeh et al. [3]. Then four series of the CSPSW specimens with opening are built and tested. Accuracy and precision of these experimental results is verified by various numerical models which are developed using ABAQUS software. Therefore, general behavior of the CSPSWs with opening are investigated according to the attained results from numerical and experimental tests. In addition, some methods are proposed to reduce the negative effects of the opening on the behavior of CSPSW. Finally a parametric study is performed to study the effects of different parameters namely concrete cover thickness, steel plate thickness, thickness of the strengthening plate installed around the opening and bolt spacing on general behavior of the CSPSW