Seismic upgrading of RC structures with only beam connected Steel Plate Shear Walls

Steel Plate Shear Walls (SPSWs) connected to the boundary frame beams only are suitable structural systems to resist lateral loads. These systems allow for designers to avoid the high flexural demands over columns imposed by conventional SPSWs connected to both beams and columns of the surrounding frame. They can be successfully applied for seismic upgrading of existing RC structures to provide them higher levels of strength, ductility and energy dissipation capacity. This paper presents a numerical assessment of the seismic response of an existing RC structure upgraded with only beam connected SPSWs. The structure, designed for resisting vertical loads only, was erected in the district of Bagnoli in Naples. The used numerical approach is based on the simplified strip model with concentrated plasticity links. The achieved results are focused on fundamental seismic performance issues of the upgraded structure, which are compared to the upgrading solution experimentally applied to the same case study.