Abstract:A new-type composite steel plate shear wall (CSPSW) is set with gaps between the concrete panel and the boundary members in order to prevent the concrete panel from resisting shear force and to avoid a deterioration caused by the restraining action of the concrete panel on the steel plate. The mechanism of CSPSW and its failure mode show that the gaps lead to diagonal tensile action within the unrestrained region of the steel plate.A simplified model,cross-strip model,was proposed by introducing diagonal compressive bars into the strip model for steel plate shear walls.The cross sectional properties and hysteretic model for the cross strips in the model were determined on the basis of the theoretical analysis.Comparison with experimental results shows that the proposed model can capture accurately nonlinear behavior of CSPSW under monotonic and cyclic loading.