Seismic Design of Coupled Shear Wall Building Linked by Hysteretic Dampers using Energy Based Seismic Design

In coupled shear wall systems, the excessive shear forces are induced in the coupling beams. As a result, in such systems, the coupling beam and the joint of wall-coupling may yield first. The critical concern about the coupling beam is ductility demand. In order to have such ductility, the coupling beams are required to be properly detailed with significantly complicated reinforcement arrangement and insignificant strength degradation during ground motion. To solve these problems and to increase energy dissipating capacities, this study presents an investigation of the seismic behavior of coupled shear wall-frame system, in which energy dissipation devices are located at the middle portion of the linked beam. The proposed method, which is based on the energy equilibrium method, offers an important design method by the result of increasing energy dissipation capacity and reducing damage to the structure. The design procedure was prescribed and discussed in details. Nonlinear dynamic analysis indicates that, with a proper set of damping parameters, the wall’s dynamic responses can be well controlled. Thereafter, an optimized formula is proposed to calculate the distribution of the yield shear force coefficients of energy dissipation devices. Thereby, distributing equal damages through different heights of a building as well as considering the permissible damage at the wall’s base. Finally, numerical examples demonstrate the applicability of the proposed methods.