Cyclic tests of steel plate shear walls using box‐shape vertical boundary elements with or without infill concrete

The steel plate shear wall (SPSW) is an effective lateral force resisting system in which unstiffened steel infill plates are connected to the horizontal and vertical boundary elements (VBEs) on all sides of the plates. The boundary elements must be designed to resist the tension field force of the infill panels. When the VBEs are made from a steel box section, the flange of each box VBE connected with the infill panels can be pulled out‐of‐plane by significant panel forces, called pull‐out action. This study investigates capacity design methods for box VBEs in SPSWs. Simplified fixed beam and portal frame models aim to estimate the pull‐out responses of the flange of the box sections with and without infill concrete, respectively. In this study, cyclic tests of three full‐scale two‐story SPSWs using box VBEs with or without the infill concrete are conducted. Inelastic pushover analyses of the finite element models are conducted. The tests and analytical results confirm that the proposed design methods, which aimed to prevent the full yield of the flange under the pull‐out action, are applicable. Furthermore, the test and analytical results suggest that the initial yielding of the flange of box VBEs under the collective effects of the pull‐out action on the flange, the gravity load, and the sway action on the SPSW represents a local yielding. A strict prohibition of the initial yielding on the flange under the aforementioned collective effects is not recommended for pursuing a cost‐effective design. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.