Modeling of coupled shear walls and its experimental verification

Coupled shear wall is one of the main structural elements in high-rise buildings. In this paper, a nonlinear macromodel is proposed to simulate the behavior of coupled shear walls. This model is composed of a multivertical-element model for wall piers and a combined model for coupling beams. In the model for wall piers, some key characters, such as shifting of neutral axis within the wall section, interaction among flexure, shear, and axial forces, can be taken into account. In the model for coupling beams, the deformation of flexure and shear, and the interface bond-slip action are considered by using different elements. Experiments of coupled shear wall specimens with different sizes of coupling beams are carried out to verify the proposed model. A comparison of the analysis with the test results shows that the model is an efficient one in nonlinear analysis of coupled shear walls.