Seismic Response of Reinforced Concrete Frame-Shear Wall Structure with Metal Rubber-Based Damper in Coupling Beam

In reinforced concrete (RC) frame-shear wall structure, the coupling beam needs to yield before the wall limbs are damaged, in order to dissipate the energy of the external load. However, the coupling beam has a limited energy dissipation capacity. Once severely damaged, the coupling beam is difficult to be repaired, which hinders the structural recovery after an earthquake. Considering excellence of metal rubber (MR) in hysteresis energy dissipation and deformation self-reset, this paper changes the energy dissipation mode of the coupling beam by adding an MR damper to the beam. Firstly, the stress-strain curve of MR was obtained through mechanical experiments, and used to construct the constitutive model of the material. Then, the parameters of the damper were designed based on the constitutive model. Next, the MR dampers were installed on the coupling beams of a 12-layer RC frame-shear wall structure. The authors analyzed the time histories of the elastoplastic dynamics of the structure under seismic actions, and calculated the seismic responses like interlayer displacement, absolute acceleration, and base shear force. These parameters were compared with those of the structure without the damper, and the output-deformation envelope curve of the damper on each layer were obtained. In this way, the authors studied how the parameters of the MR damper affect the seismic response of RC frame-shear wall structure. The results show that adding the MR damper to coupling beam can effectively weaken the seismic response of the RC frame-shear wall structure.