SEISMIC PERFORMANCE OF A 55-STOREY STEEL PLATE SHEAR WALL

The Los Angeles Convention Center Hotel is a 55-storey steel-framed steel plate shear wall high-rise building that takes full advantage of many of the performance-based design approaches and philosophies. The primary lateral resistance system consists of thin steel plates (3/8-1/4 in. thick) within fully welded WUF-W moment frames. Additional system stiffness is provided by several storey-high outrigger trusses at the mid-height and top of the tower while using buckling-restrained braces (BRBs) as fuse elements to control the maximum force that the outrigger trusses can develop. Full nonlinear time history record analyses were performed using a suite of seven paired around motions scaled to a 2475-year event. Modelling methods were developed for the expected model system behaviour that correlated well with observations from independent research tests. While an essential part of the alternate design verification process, the nonlinear modelling needed to be carefully scrutinized at every step to ensure that unanticipated results of the verification were true behaviours rather than artificial artefacts of model limitations that were not indicative of actual system performance. Extensive analysis and design were performed for the diaphragms of the tower for building set-back 26th level, as well as the ground floor podium transfer slab. A bounding analysis was performed to ensure essentially elastic behaviour for the backstay of the tower in the concrete basement wells and reinforced concrete mat. Copyright (c) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.