Numerical study of the steel plate shear walls with different corrugation shapes inside the sandwich panels under the seismic loading condition

Steel plate shear walls are widely employed as lateral force-resisting systems in low- to high-rise buildings. While the infill plate critically influences cyclic performance, conventional flat plates exhibit limited energy dissipation and susceptibility to buckling. This study investigates novel sandwich panel infill plates comprising two flat steel face sheets and a corrugated core. Four corrugation shapes (rectangular, sinusoidal, trapezoidal, and zigzag) in both horizontal and vertical orientations are systematically evaluated through finite element analysis validated against experimental data. An existing analytical homogenization framework is applied to predict equivalent orthotropic properties of the corrugated cores to reduce the modeling complexity. Results demonstrate that vertically oriented corrugated cores improve cumulative energy dissipation by up to 400% compared to flat plates, with rectangular and sinusoidal shapes exhibiting superior performance. Plastic dissipation energy reaches 17.62 kJ for vertically oriented sinusoidal cores vs 6.28 kJ for flat plates. Strain energy decomposition reveals that vertically oriented configurations achieve membrane energy ratios of 75%–83%, compared to 55% for flat plates, explaining their enhanced shear-dominated behavior. Preliminary design guidance is provided for engineering applications based on the comparative evaluation of the eight configurations.