Postyield Cyclic Buckling Criteria for Aluminum Shear Panels

Aluminum shear panels can dissipate significant amount of energy through hysteresis provided strength deterioration due to buckling is avoided. A detailed experimental study of the inelastic behavior of the full-scale models of shear panels of 6063-O and 1100-O alloys of aluminum is conducted under slow cyclic loading of increasing displacement levels. The geometric parameters that determine buckling of the shear panels, such as web depth-to-thickness ratio, aspect ratio of panels, and number of panels, were varied among the specimens. Test results were used to predict the onset of buckling with proportionality factor $f$ in Gerard’s formulation of inelastic buckling. Moreover, a logarithmic relationship between buckling stress and slenderness ratio of the panel was observed to predict experimental data closely. These relations can be further used to determine the geometry of shear panels, which will limit the inelastic web buckling at design shear strains.