A Design Formulation for Dissipative Metal Shear Panels

This paper proposes an analytical formulation for designing dissipative metal shear panels for the seismic protection of buildings. In particular, two types of dissipative shear panels are analyzed. The first is based on the adoption of a material characterized by a low yield strength with the application of transversal stiffeners. The latter is a steel shear plate that is properly weakened by perforations. Both the studied typologies are conceived in order to obtain a low shear elastic strength, so that their dissipative function is activated when the other members of the structure are still in the elastic field, even for high intensity earthquakes. Moreover, they are usually designed in order to postpone the trigger of potential buckling phenomena to the field of high shear inelastic demands. The proposed design formulations put in relation demanded shear stresses and strains. In particular, a unique expression, characterized by different coefficients for the two panel typologies, is given. The validity of the proposed expression is corroborated on the basis of the results of several numerical and experimental analysis.