Performance of steel coupling beam with trapezoidal corrugated web: experimental tests and numerical analysis

Steel coupling beam (SCB) is a substantial member of the hybrid coupled walls system. When coupled walls are linked by SCB rather than conventionally reinforced or diagonally reinforced coupling beams, the system’s strength and energy dissipation capacities are greatly enhanced. A corrugated web may be used in SCB instead of a flat web to improve these characteristics even more. This paper presents an experimental and numerical investigation of the shear-carrying capacity and energy-dissipating capability of steel coupling beams with both types of webs (flat and corrugated). Full-scale specimens of hybrid coupled walls with SCB made with flat web and SCB with corrugated web were prepared and tested under monotonic loading. Finite elements software (ABAQUS) was used to implement the numerical analysis. Good agreement was noticed between the experimental and the numerical results. The results of this study are promising that to the possibility to enhance the load carrying and ductility capacities of SCB using a corrugated plate instead of a flat plate as a web. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.