Experimental and analytical study of steel slit shear wall

A steel slit shear wall has vertical slits and when it is under lateral loads, the section between these slits has double-curvature deformation, and by forming a flexural plastic hinge at the end of the slit, it dissipates the energy on the structure. In this article, Experimental, numerical and analytical analyses are performed to study the effect of slit shape and edge stiffener on the behavior of steel slit shear wall. Seismic behavior of three models with different slit shapes and two models with different edge stiffener shapes are studied and compared. Hysteresis curves, energy dissipation, out of plane buckling, initial stiffness and strength are discussed and studied. The proposed slit shape reduces the initial stiffness, increases the strength and energy dissipation. Also, edge stiffener shape increases the initial stiffness significantly.