Numerical analysis of aluminium perforated shear panels

Metal perforated shear plates have been proposed in the last recent years as a suitable solution for passive protection of buildings in seismic-prone zones. The use of soft aluminum alloys seems to be particularly convenient for these special devices. In fact, on the one hand, the low yield strength of the base material allows to control more easily the structural performance without the necessity of large weakening of the base plate. On the other hand, the high ductility that some annealed alloys are able to provide allows significant inelastic deformations, this leading to an appreciable dissipative behavior of the device. In this paper a parametric numerical analysis on pure aluminum perforated shear panels is presented with the aim of examining the panel responses for several arrangements of perforations for different shear deformation demands. In particular, the influence of geometrical parameters related to the hole configuration is investigated.