Seismic behavior of RC coupled shear walls with strengthened coupling beams by bonded thin composite plates

The present study investigates the dynamic analysis of Reinforced Concrete (RC) coupled shear walls strengthened by bonded Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) composite plates applied on both sides of the coupling beams. For this purpose, new finite element models are developed for both the walls and strengthened coupling beams. In the validation process of the proposed model, static and free vibration analyses of coupled shear walls were firstly studied. Comparisons with ABAQUS code using shell elements were made and good agreement was observed. After this stage, dynamic analysis was carried out under El Centro and Northridge earthquake records. In these conceptual studies, the maximum top lateral deflection responses of strengthened and unstrengthened RC coupled shear walls are computed. The obtained results showed that mitigation of seismic behaviour of RC coupled shear walls by using CFRP bonded composite plates depends on the geometrical characteristics of shear wall structure and dominant range frequencies of the input earthquake records.